


SuperStar

by TiredGayTryingHerBest



Category: Naruto, Naruto Shippuden
Genre: AU, BL, Bands, BoyxBoy, Emo, M/M, Modern AU, Nostalgia, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2020-10-17 13:15:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 49,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20621630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiredGayTryingHerBest/pseuds/TiredGayTryingHerBest
Summary: Naruto Uzumaki is an aspiring singer/songwriter but working full-time at a music store makes it almost impossible to aspire to his dreams. This up-and-coming band called Taka is in desperate need of a songwriter or else they could turn out to be a one-hit-wonder. Taka discovers Naruto's talent during a meet&greet at the music store and wants to hire him. Naruto is so down for this opportunity except, the label is too restricting and he keeps getting called "a dobe" by the lead-guitarist.





	1. Pilot

__Naruto Uzumaki, no one has ever heard of him aside from the few hundred followers on his social media page. Not too bad of a following, but he knew it was because of blonde hair and blue eyes...mainly because there was always heart emojis under his selfies but rarely anything under his videos of song covers. Overall, he felt like he had some potential, but didn’t have any idea on how to take that potential and push it further. Sometimes he would sing at open mic night but that’s as far as he’s ever gone to singing in front of an audience. He wanted to change that, but the only issue was that his “lifestyle” made it pretty hard. 

A car horn from outside is what tore his attention away from what he was jotting down at his desk. The numbers on the clock next to his half-eaten breakfast of ramen made his eyes widen. “Shit-” He cursed as he got up and quickly undressed, tossing his sleepwear to the side before running to his dresser. He didn’t know he could change this fast, but it wasn’t fast enough when he heard the car horn from outside again. “I’m coming!” Naruto yelled, knowing that he couldn’t be heard from his room. He took one last scoop of noodles and shoved it in his mouth before storming out the door and locking it behind him. Phone? Check. Wallet? Check. Key? Check. Living on the third floor of this complex with no working elevator was a struggle, but alas, he went down all those flights without tripping for once. 

Another honk. Naruto threw his arms up considering that he can see the driver seeing him. “I’m coming!” He hopped in the passenger side, “Jeez Kiba, it’s still early too.” Naruto said as he fastened his seatbelt. 

“Do you even have your lanyard on you?” Kiba asked only for Naruto to pull it out of his pocket, with his apartment keys and work tag. “Yes. I didn’t forget this time.” He said a matter of fact. Kiba whipped out his phone and opened up an app before propping it on his cellphone mount. “Is that really a speedometer app?” Naruto asked when it finally loaded. 

“Shut it, kit. We get paid tomorrow anyway so I’ll get this fixed.” Kiba said as he started driving onto the road. “Besides, be grateful that I’m going out of my way to give you a ride,” Kiba said. Naruto rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the dog smell that lingered in the car. He was grateful though because it definitely beat walking to the nearest bus stop thirty minutes away. Kiba and Naruto are coworkers and even friends. They work at a music store called _Muse Boos_in the main part of town. It wasn’t just a music store either, but a lounge/cafe. Naruto had only started working there for about a month now, but due to his full-time position, he had gotten very familiar with his work already. Since parking was almost impossible to find, Kiba had pulled up to the store to drop Naruto off before driving off to find a dreaded spot. As a routine, Naruto walked into the nearly empty store and headed towards the back room, stopping at the manager’s office and poking his head in, “hey-”

“Just clock in Naruto I know.” Naruto let out a chuckle, “hehe, thanks Iruka.” he went to clock in as usual before heading to the front desk where the daily task list is usually at. It’s usually all the same but Naruto liked to look at it in case there were any changes, and this time there was. On the top of the list, it said there was going to be a mandatory meeting at 1 p.m. Fine by him, it’s not like he was going anywhere. He already had an idea of what it was going to be about. There was going to be a meet and greet this weekend of this up and coming band that has been taking over the radio for a while now called Taka. Naruto has grown a liking to their popular songs, but that’s about all he knew of them really. That and how attractive the lead guitarist was. 

Soon enough, Kiba finally made it through the door, panting. “Not only is it hot as hell, but trying to find decent parking is impossible.” He said walking in. 

“Did you run?” Naruto asked. Kiba finally got himself together as he went behind the counter, “had too, look how much time I wasted. Someday when you finally get a car, you’ll know what I mean.” He said before heading to the back to clock in and greet his manager. Naruto had a car once, but it’s been years. He’s been trying to save up for one too, but the rent and bills are just a few things that exist. 

The store was pretty vacant, but that was because it was still early. By the time it was 1, a lot of the staff was gathering themselves in the lounge area for this mandatory meeting, including Naruto. The staff included those who worked at the cafe as well. Iruka walked out from the backroom with a clipboard at hand. 

“Hello everybody, I’m glad to see that my email went through about this meeting. As you already know, there is going to be a meet and greet here this Saturday at 6. Just a reminder that this band, Taka, is getting big and as far as I know, there is most likely going to be a line out the door, meaning a lot of crazed fans versus us and this store. We’re going to be rearranging this place in order to run things more smoothly for not only the fans but of course the band members. I have a copy of the schedule right here and I’m going to pass it around as a reminder on who is expected to be here on for setting up and for the meet&greet.” 

When Naruto was handed the schedule, naturally he was going to be there for both the setup and the meet and greet. The setting up was going to be the night before after they closed but luckily they were going to close early because of it. Iruka went on and on, truthfully Naruto mentally clocked out after he saw his name on the schedule. After the meeting was over, the staff that wasn’t scheduled for today had left while the rest stayed behind to get back to work. As the day went on, more and more people started coming in. It wasn’t that busy on Naruto’s part since he was a cashier on the music store side, however, more and more people came to buy Taka’s newest album which made sense. 

“I am so not excited about this weekend,” Kiba said as he goes to sit on the stool next to where Naruto was standing in front of the register. 

“Not even for the chance to meet the band members?” Naruto asked. 

“I don’t care about that. Taka is so overrated. If I hear that stupid song about whatever-the-hell one more time I might break my car radio.” 

“Then change the station.”

“I do!” Kiba sighed and shook his head, “not only that, I’m in charge of taking pictures. You’re lucky, behind here is like a barrier.” Kiba said. Naruto did work at the cash register a lot. 

“Switch shifts with me.” Naruto suddenly said. Kiba looked up surprised, “wait seriously?” Naruto nodded, “Believe it! And besides, I’ve seen you’re media page, Mr. Shaky hands.”

“Hey, I’ll take it! I’m not even going to argue with that, I’ll tell Iruka right now.” 

Was Naruto really thinking of the opportunity to gain some possible connections? Did he hope that having to spend more time with the band and even the band manager...maybe he could get a chance at something? How was he going to do that without seeming pushy, he didn’t know. 

-x- 

Set up wasn’t that bad, but since Naruto had already worked all day, he was just tired. The lounge itself had a stage, typically for open mics and events like this. Since this was a bigger event, all the lounge furniture had to be moved to the side. Naruto found out that the meet and greet was also going to be a show too which was new to him. Maybe he should have paid attention to the meeting. Oh well. Naruto had finished helping with the setup, luckily Kiba was here still so he could give Naruto a ride back. The only thing Naruto was worried about was going home tomorrow night because he knew that his shift -now Kiba’s- ended earlier than this one and Naruto new Kiba wasn’t going to wait for him. He didn’t want to resort to using a taxi but now that he was planning everything out, that may be the case. At least he had extra hours under his belt. 

Coming in the next day with Kiba started out normally until 3 o’clock hit and they realized that people were already showing up for the meet and greet. The band wasn’t even here yet. 

“Tsk. Good luck tonight, kit.” Kiba said. He looked at Naruto and he noticed that he was writing something out on a piece of paper. “Whatcha got there?” 

“I had these lines stuck in my head all day, I figure if I wrote them down, I can put them in song lat- hey!” Naruto said when Kiba snatched the paper from under him. 

“You write music?” 

“Sometimes. Now give it back, dog breath!” Naruto said as he tried reaching over to grab the paper but no avail. 

“Please won’t you push me for the last time...let’s scream until there’s nothing left”[1] Kiba recited from the piece of paper. “Hey not bad,” Kiba said as he finally handed the paperback. “When we have an open mic, you should perform this or something.” 

Naruto shoved the paper in his pocket, “maybe, but it’s not exactly everyone’s cup of tea unless they want to hear actual screaming.” 

“Oh no way, you like that type of music? You surprise me, everyday dude.” Kiba chuckled. “Hey, I’m gonna get some coffee, want some?” 

Naruto scrunched his nose and shook his head, “no thanks. Any other form of energy in a cup would be better.” 

Kiba chuckles, “I like how you specifically said ‘in a cup’, nice save,” he said with a wink before walking over to the cafe. 

“Hey Naruto, are you sure you want to go through Kiba’s shift? You know you’re gonna have to stay late right?” Iruka said, coming from the back room. 

“I know, and I’m fine with it. I’m mentally preparing myself to spend the money for a taxi home as we speak.” Naruto said with a smile. 

“As long as it doesn’t affect your work performance,” Iruka said. He knew how hard Naruto had to work to make ends meet, Iruka always wondered how Naruto was still able to carry himself while still having a smile on his face. 

“When have I let you down Iruka- actually don’t answer that. The upside, I get listen to cool live music, believe it!” 

“You listen to Taka?” 

Naruto shrugged, “I listen to all sorts of music. On the drive here Taka did come on the radio and Kiba changed the station like 3 times and each station landed on “Too Great to Die” or whatever their song his called, he was going mad! It was fun to watch really. Do you know when they’ll be arriving?” 

“You know I can’t tell you out here, are you crazy? Now, do some mic checks in about an hour or so. And if you can keep the crowd preoccupied, that would be great.” Naruto raised an eyebrow, not bothering asking but he soon regretted that when an hour went by and more people started flooding in. 

“Oh, brother,” Naruto said to himself. He checked the time on his phone before taking the last sip of his energy drink Kiba had given him. 

“No, they aren’t here yet,” Kiba said to a fan who had come up to them asking about the band. “These people are getting impatient for a show that starts at six.”

“I need to do some mic checks right about now. I can’t wait to let these people down when they realize someone that isn’t Taka going stage for mic checks.” Naruto said. 

“Good luck with that. I’ll be cheering for you from here!” Kiba snickered as he saw Naruto making his way over to the stage by walking through the coffee station since that was the only way to do so without having to push people out of the way. When he got on the stage people started to cheer as he expected._Did people think the show would start early?_

The stage itself had a set of drums, amps, speakers, and so on. Naruto managed to stumble on some wires but caught himself. People make him nervous. At this point, he was wondering if he looked cool enough to even be watched like a hawk by these fans. He shook his head trying to snap out of it._There was nothing wrong with your outfit, it’s just some jeans and an orange band t-shirt. _

He went over to one of the mics in front of the guitar and turned it and started tapping on it. The sound went through the speaker so I went to talk into it. “Mic check, testing, this one sounds pretty good, don’t you think?” Naruto asked the crowd gathering towards the stage. The crowd said nothing making Naruto chuckled awkwardly. He looked over to where Kiba was at the register and it looked like he was on his phone. _Bastard_. 

Naruto turned off the mic and went to the other one by the bass guitar set up and did the same thing like he did the last one except this time he didn’t bother asking the crowd anything. He went to the main mic and did the same thing until he was cut off by someone in the crowd, “Are you going to sing?!” they said. 

“Sing? I guess that’s a way to check the mics.” Naruto said with a laugh. He did not plan on singing. 

“Sing for us cutie!” Naruto darted his head to see who said that. It was from the coffee station, from behind the counter! From there he saw his coworker, TenTen, waving at him smiling as if she wasn’t just heckling. “Yeah sing!” this time it was from someone from the crowd. It didn't look until a few more people joined in. 

“Alright! only if you guys sing with me, believe it. Anybody know a band called _Queen_?” Naruto said causing people to cheer. He figured he would start off with songs he knew everyone would know. 

“Alright now, I’m no Freddie Mercury but bare with me. I want you guys to stomp and clap like this,” Naruto said as he started the beat and waited for the crowd to steadily join him. When he got most of the crowd to do it, he put his mouth at a good distance from the mic and started to sing, 

_[2] Buddy, you're a boy, make a big noise_

_Playing in the street, gonna be a big man someday_

_You got mud on your face, you big disgrace_

_Kicking your can all over the place, singin' _

All together the crowd went, “We will, we will rock you! We will, we will rock you!” 

_Buddy, you're a young man, hard man_

_Shouting in the street, gonna take on the world someday_

_You got blood on your face, you big disgrace_

_Waving your banner all over the place _

“We will, we will rock you! We will, we will rock you!” 

As Naruto sang the next verse, Kiba couldn’t help but feel impressed. “The kit can sing too,” Kiba said. By the end of the song people clapped. 

“Thank you, thank you, for being so kind towards my acapella,” Naruto said. He was about to step away until someone said, “another one!” Naruto realized that he go the crowd all amped up now. Maybe choosing such an iconic song wasn’t the best idea. “Well alright, sir,” Naruto said into the mic, “Let’s keep going with some more _Queen_, shall we?” he said causing people to cheer. He noticed more and more people were flooding in the space. 

_[2] I want to break free…_

After that line, people went quiet so they could listen as Naruto continued. People actually seemed to enjoy him. Not to toot his own horn, but Naruto figured as such only because when he would perform occasionally, there was a trend of a good reaction. Naruto managed to keep the crowd preoccupied as Iruka told him to do. Naruto was very comfortable in this position, in front of a mic, singing in front of a crowd. One day, he might make it a living somehow. He sang a few more songs along with cracking a few jokes, at least 2 out of the three made the crowd laugh. He then peaked his phone out of his pocket and notice it was almost time for the show. “Alright, I should get going before I get fired,” Naruto said jokingly, “consider me your opening act that I will have to convince my boss to pay me extra for but that’s beside the point.” Naruto laughed, “bye, believe it!” He said before turning off the mic and getting off. He even heard the crowd cheer. Right next to the stage there was a door that leads to the back room. His mind was racing, he can’t believe he just did that. He was too much in his thoughts as he sped walked into the backroom, he didn’t see where he was going, causing him to bump into someone so hard that caused them both to fall. “Watch where you’re going, moron!” Naruto heard someone say. He quickly stood back up in order to help whoever he knocked over. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see where I was going-”

“Hn. Clearly.” 

It was then Naruto realized it was the band members of Taka. Not only that, the member he had run into was his Taka crush, the lead guitarist. The energy radiating from him was colder than he thought it would be. 

“Listen, moron, you could have injured the talent,” It was that voice from before, Naruto recognized him as the lead singer, very in touch with his feminine side by the looks of it with his purple crop top, leather pants and bright white hair. He forgot his name though. In fact, he didn’t know any of their names aside from the band name. He listened to music, knowing the names of those who sang the songs? They would really have to catch Naruto’s attention for that. 

“I said I was sorry. And who are you calling a moron, moron!” Naruto retorted, which caught the other members by surprise. 

“Do you even know who you’re talking to kid?! I’m Suigetsu Hozuki, put some respect on it.” 

Naruto couldn’t help but laugh, “Ha! Kid! From the looks of it you don’t seem much older than me, believe it! And the names Naruto, why don’t YOU put some respect on that!” Naruto shouted. 

“Childish.” the man who Naruto ran into said. _Man, I really have to learn their names_. Suigetsu scuffed, “whatever. I’d rather not waste my time with someone wearing /that/ t-shirt.” 

Naruto looked down at his band shirt. “Something wrong with _The Killers_?” Naruto didn’t know what was so funny considering that three out of the four members started to laugh at him. 

“Whatever dude, clearly you’re some punk wannabe.” Suigetsu said, causing the others to laugh once again. The one band member didn’t laugh though, he didn’t seem to show any emotion at all, Naruto, on the other hand, felt his face turn warm. 

“What is going on here?” A new face stepped into the room. Naruto wondered if he was supposed to know this guy’s name too. “Now who are you?” Naruto asked.

“I’m the band’s manager, but you can call me Kakashi. Oh and thanks again for keeping the crowd under control back there, uhh”

Naruto’s raised an eyebrow. He found it strange that this manager hid half his face with a mask.

“Naruto, the names Naruto. And don’t mention it, just doing my job.” 

“Wait what is he talking about?” The redheaded band member asked. 

“You guys were too busy sneaking in the building to notice, but this young man pretty much opened the show. Speaking of which, here’s my card.” Kakashi says, handing him a business card, “to pay you accordingly for your service, contact me later.” 

Naruto’s eyes widened, “Gee, thanks, I appreciate it, believe it,” he says, shoving the card in his back pocket. 

“Oh please, he got the crowd’s attention for two seconds, big deal.” The redhead said. 

Naruto squinted his eyes and rubbed his head, “man, I really don’t know any of your names and I feel like I should.” 

Before any of the band members could express their shock verbally, Kakashi said, “then let me introduce you, this is Juugo, he’s on drums, and on bass we have Karin, Suigetsu the lead singer and last but not least, Sasuke on guitar. Now Naruto, I like your style. Do you write?” 

“Kakashi! What the hell are you doing?!” Suigetsu said, stepping forward and slapping his manager on the arm. Kakashi stretched his arm out to push Suigetsu back. “Well, Naruto?” Kakashi said, disregarding the lead singer’s intrusion. 

“U-um well, I do have some songs in the making, yes.” Naruto said, “What is this about?” 

“Yeah Kakashi what is this about?!” Karin exclaimed. While all this was going down, Juugo had zoned out from the spot he was sitting on the couch. Sasuke wasn’t any different except that he was reading everyone’s body language. Kakashi sighed, what he was thinking was impulsive, but the thing was, at this pace that they’re going, he could tell that the band wasn’t far from turning into a one-hit-wonder. “You two need to calm down,” Kakashi said, throwing a glare at the two band members. “We all know that Taka has been doing great but we also know that all of you have trouble coming up with a decent song,” Kakashi said. 

“How do we even know this kid write?” Juugo asked when he came back from zoning out about two seconds ago. That’s when everyone’s head turned to Naruto. Naruto curling in his knuckles, feeling how moist his palms were. Standing on stage with a crowd staring at him was easy, but this was a different feeling. 

“See I expected this to happen at like an audition so I can mentally prepare myself ahead of time,” Naruto laughed nervously. 

“You said you had something. So go on.” Suigetsu said, folding his arms. 

“C-can I get some water first?” Naruto said, “I kinda did just sing a few songs back there.” 

Karin rolled her eyes as she went over to the refreshment table to grab a water bottle and tossed it at him. Naruto had barely caught it, just barely. Sweaty palms. He opened the water bottle and chugged it. To forget that these clearly bothered band members were glaring daggers at him, he closed eyes and took a deep breath, 

_[3]Please, won't you push me for the last time_

_Let's scream until there's nothing left_

_So sick of playing, I don't want this anymore_

_The thought of you's no fucking fun_

_You want a martyr, I'll be one_

_Because enough's enough, we're done_

Naruto had only sung a snippet, considering that he hadn’t figured out the rest of the song yet. When he opened his eyes, he noticed that everyone’s expression changed. Kakashi and Juugo and Karin seemed impressed, Suigetsu got angrier, and Sasuke had stood up to stand next to Kakashi. _When did he get there? _

“What?” Naruto asked. 

“That’s really good,” Juugo said, breaking the silence. Kakashi nodded in agreement. 

“Okay! So what if he’s good, we’re leaving to Suna tonight anyway and don’t plan on coming back to Konoha until our next tour. 

“That’s not a problem. With an opportunity like this, I’m sure Naruto doesn’t mind tagging along. We’ll stop by wherever you live after the show on the tour bus so you can pack some of your stuff and we’ll be on our way.” 

Naruto gaped in shock, he couldn’t even get any words out. Before he could try and say anything, the stage manager with a headset gave them a five-minute warning. 

“We’ll talk after the show Naruto,” Kakashi said. 

And that was how Naruto found himself sitting on a tour bus at the at one in the morning. The night had felt like a blur. He remembered walking into Iruka’s office mid-show, still in shock. He had explained to him what had happened and that he was going to request some time off apparently. Since Kiba was there too, he expressed his support, but he couldn’t help but feel jealous also. After the show ended, he proceeded to finish his part in the meet and greet by taking pictures. But after that, it was straight to the tour bus. He didn’t think this was actually going to happen. In fact, he only imagined it too and joked about it to himself, but that’s as far as it went. Now he was sitting on one of the cushioned seats in the tour bus, feeling Suigetsu’s glare on the side of his head. 

_Gosh, this feels like a one direction fanfiction. _Naruto then thought as he sank further into the seat. 

* * *

**A/N**: I honestly don’t know what the hell came over me. I was listening to emo music again, it’s legit been like eight years since I last listened to any and hear I am. Making a guilty pleasure of a Naruto fanfic with this type of plot using emo songs. I also started rewatching Naruto and that was also something I haven’t done in a minute. So, of course, I wanted emo music and Naruto to merge. Have you seen the Naruto emo fanart? But yeah, I have officially lost my mind. If this chapter feels it’s cuz my heart was rushing me. Like I wanted this concept on paper already. If you'll like it, let me know and I’ll write some more. 

Also, 

**Disclaimers: **

*[1] & [3]: Those are lyrics from King For a Day by Pierce the Veil ft Kellin Quin. 

*[2]: We Will rock you by Queen. There was also a snippet from the song I Want to Break free from Queen. 

**I don’t own any lyrics written in this chapter nor the characters from Naruto/Naruto Shippuden. I’m just a fangirl who needed to get some things off her chest.**


	2. Singer / Songwriter

Naruto’s eye twitched as he tried his hardest to ignore the glare he was receiving from the silver-haired drama queen who sat on the other end of the seat. Not only was it a glare, but he felt the other observing him as well. “Stop staring at me you perv!” Naruto yelled, finally turning his head. 

“Perv?! As if!” Suigetsu yelled even louder. From where Karin was sitting across from them, she shifted her gaze from her phone to see what the ruckus was about. If they glared at each other any harder, one of them was bound to turn into stone or something. 

“Can you two knock it off,” Sasuke intervened as he walked onto the bus. “I can hear you two from outside.” 

“He started it!” Suigetsu said, pointing at Naruto childishly. 

“Frankly I don’t care. If I were you, I’d go try and whip up some new material considering that you’re the only one who opposes the idea of a new member.” Sasuke said. 

Suigetsu stayed silent but his eyes still glared daggers, but this time it wasn’t towards a specific person. “Fine.” Suigetsu finally said before getting up and heading towards his bed, right side, top bunk, the sound of the bunk curtain closing with a quick swift. “Hn,” Sasuke said before proceeding to take Suigetsu's spot. 

“Where’s Juugo?” Karin asked. Before Sasuke could respond, Juugo stepped on the bus while simultaneously letting out the biggest yawn. “Thanks for the help guys, appreciate it.” He said, referring to how he and Kakashi were the only ones who packed the equipment away in the storage compartments. 

“Oh, it’s nothing you can’t handle,” Karin said, going back to scrolling on her phone. 

“Whatever. Hey kid,” Juugo turned his gaze to Naruto, “Kakashi said to give your address to Shino.”

“Who’s Shino?” 

“The bus driver.” 

Naruto clenched his teeth a little, not liking the attitude he had been receiving all night. It was people like this that made Kiba’s attitude bearable since no matter how much Kiba teased him and called him names, at least he never talked down to him. Not wanting to start up another argument, he got up and walked around the band member to get to the front of the bus where he found a brown-haired guy with round glasses, reading a book probably for the 20th time judging by the spine of the book. “Um Shino right?” Naruto asked. Shino averted his gaze, “The one and only. Who are you though? A groupie?” Naruto felt his eye twitch again. 

“A groupie?! As if!”

“What are you doing here than? Should I call the police?” 

“No need to call the police, Shino,” Kakashi said, walking onto the bus, but he couldn’t get far because Naruto was in the way. Naruto shifted to the side to give Kakashi some room. “This is our new songwriter.” 

“Is that so?” Shino looking Naruto up in down causing the blonde’s cheeks to warm up again. 

“We need to stop by his place so he can pack a few things before heading back to Suna,” Kakashi informed. 

“Well, I’m gonna need an address first.” Shino took the GPS from his GPS mount and handed it over to Naruto, “Put it in.” He ordered. 

_Why is everyone such a hardass?_After the address was given, he made his way back to the lounging area of the bus. He couldn’t help but contemplate his decision, but then he reminded himself that it was just another job and if he didn’t like it, he could just quit. One thing that he didn’t seem to get over was how big the tour bus was. He never knew a vehicle could fit so much furniture. The sound of the bus doors closing indicated that they were about to drive off. Kakashi had made himself comfortable in the passenger seat next to Shino. Naruto, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to get comfortable as he sat back down in the spot he decided to claim for the time being. It wasn’t that the seats were uncomfortable either. It was so quiet aside from the sound of the bus moving. He noticed that none of the band members didn’t really acknowledge each other. It wasn’t long until Karin made her way back to her bunk which was right below Suigetsu’s. Juugo had put headphones on while Sasuke was also on his phone. Naruto already had a hard time getting service on his phone as it is so he really just sat there. He looked over at Sasuke, admitting to himself that he was definitely the most attractive in the band. Naruto wouldn’t admit to this aloud though. 

“Hey, um, Sasuke right?” Naruto asked. 

“Hn.” 

The response, if it was considered a response, made Naruto’s eyebrow raise. “Thanks for earlier.”

“It’s not like I was doing you the favor.” 

Okay, maybe he wasn’t the most attractive. It was so easy for people to lose their appeal the second they opened their mouth because turns out, this guy wasn’t any better than everyone else. Relief came over Naruto when he peeked out the window and noticed familiar buildings that let him know that they were close to his place. When they pulled up in front of his apartment complex, he tried to ignore the feeling of being embarrassed over the area that he lived in. What made him feel better is that no one seemed to notice that the bus even stopped. “Alright Naruto, make it quick because we’re a little behind schedule,” Kakashi said when Naruto was making his way off the bus. 

Naruto knew that this was his last chance to refuse the offer and make it seem like this never happened, but he also wasn’t that stupid. Was he? He didn’t know how much to even pack. He figured he would get his biggest bag, a sports duffle that he found at a thrift store, and just started shoving clothes in it along with his phone charger, headphones, his notebook, along with other things like his sleeping medicine. He stripped himself from his work shirt to throw on a baggie hoodie. He took the work tag off his lanyard, leaving only his apartment key. He took one last look of his small messy apartment before closing and locking the door behind him. He didn’t have much to end up missing so it was easy to leave it behind for the time being. When he got back onto the bus, he noticed that Juugo and Sasuke must have gone to their bunks too and no one had told Naruto where he was sleeping and he didn’t want to try and peak at any of the bunks to see if there happened to be an empty one. He sat at the end of the seat where there was an end table he could pull in front of him. He wasn’t even tired anyway. He took the notebook from his duffle and placed it on the table along with a pen he had packed and started writing down the lyrics he had written back in the music store on a blank page of paper. The lights were turned off and he felt the bus move again, his only source of light being the brightness on his phone but it was just enough.

By the time the sun was peeking over the mountains, Naruto had decided to rest his head onto the table, not realizing how tired he’d gotten. 

“Should we wake him?” 

Naruto’s ear twitched when the sound of people talking started to register in his head. 

“Maybe we’ll be lucky if he never wakes up.” 

“That’s harsh even for me, Suigetsu.” 

Naruto’s eyes fluttered open when he realized he had fallen asleep, his head shot up. He looked over at his phone and tried turning it on only to realize it was dead. 

“Looks like sleeping ugly is finally awake.” Suigetsu said with a laugh, but only he laughed at his joke. 

“Do you ever stop talking?” Sasuke asked. 

Naruto looked around, there were still on the road. Sasuke was sitting on the other side of the seat again, Karin was at the little counter preparing coffee while Suigetsu was sitting right across the blonde songwriter. Juugo must still be sleeping because he didn’t see him. 

“What time is it?” Naruto asked sleepily while he rubbed his eyes. 

“It’s 9:30, we should be arriving in Suna in about an hour.” Karin said, “Coffee will be ready in about three minutes.” 

Naruto realized that he must have only gotten three hours of sleep max. He looked down at his paper and he saw that he had written more lyrics but he could tell how tired he was getting when his writing started to trail off towards the end of his last sentence. “Have you been writing this whole time?” Sasuke asked. 

“Um yeah, it’s what I usually do when I can’t sleep. Can you help me with the next line? I’m kinda stuck.” Naruto asked as he reread his lyrics and remembered why he put his head down in the first place. Sasuke scooted closer to the blonde and peaked at the paper. “Is that even English?” Sasuke asked. Naruto rolled his eyes, “it says, 

_[1]You told me think about it, well I did_

_Now I don't wanna feel a thing anymore_

_I'm tired of begging for the things that I want _

“And I don’t know what to add to that, I feel like it should be something more aggressive? Like a statement,” Naruto said. He was so focused on his lyrics, he didn’t notice Suigetsu glaring at him once again. 

“Hn. What else are you tired of?” Sasuke asked. 

Naruto tilted his head as he looked at the paper, next to the lyrics he started writing possible lyrics down but none of them were hitting right. “It’s going to be hard to think of stuff just waking up like that,” Karin said, walking over to Naruto with a cup of coffee and handing it to him. “Here, I just added milk and sugar.” 

Naruto internally grimaced at the thought of coffee, but he also didn’t want to be rude so he took it anyway. “Thank you,” He said as brought it to his lips and took a light sip. He didn’t know how much sugar Karin put in it but it definitely made the drink bearable. 

“We never really asked you about...anything really,” Karin said, sitting next to Suigetsu, “What kind of music do you even write? How do we know our styles aren’t going to clash?”

“Your style isn’t far too different from mine I don’t think. If anything, the difference between our styles is that I like to incorporate a lot of, um, anger? To my lyrics. I can adjust the song where that isn’t necessary, but-” 

“Wait what do you mean by anger?” Sasuke asked. 

“Oh, hehe,” Naruto chuckled awkwardly, “have you ever heard of screamo?” Everyone looked at Naruto like that was the last thing they expected him to say. 

“You can scream?” Karin asked. Naruto shrugged, “I practice when I have the time too,” He said, “Not all my songs are like that, this one though has just been on my mind.” 

“What’s the inspiration?” Karin asked. Naruto thought for a bit,_what was the inspiration?_“Well, I guess having to live paycheck to paycheck,” Naruto said. There was a silence between the band members, Naruto raised his head and looked at the three, “What?”

“Nothing. I’m sure you’ll figure out the last line.” Karin said. 

“Speaking of which, I started writing a song myself.” Suigetsu said, tilting his chin up. Naruto saw Karin roll his eyes which made him laugh a little, in result Suigetsu shot a glare at the blonde. “You know, the more you look at me like that, the harsher the wrinkles will become in between your eyebrows.” Naruto pointed out. 

“Nothing botox can’t fix.” Suigetsu retorted, “But anyway, listen to this, we’re here to party, all these girls are all up on me,”

“You can stop right there Suigetsu.” Sasuke said, “plus the way you’re singing it sounds like our last song but with different words.” 

Suigetsu sighed in defeat, “Yeah I don’t have anything.” 

Naruto laid back against the seat, taking a few more sips of his coffee now that it has cooled down some more. Sasuke looked over at the notebook once again, trying to make out Naruto’s hand writing. He read over the lines that were written on the side and took the pen and circled one of them, “I think that one sounds good,” He said. Naruto leaned forward and reread what he wrote along with the new line, “Yeah, I think you’re onto something.” Before Naruto could think of anything else, his stomach growled loud enough for everyone to hear. His cheeks once again felt like they were warming up. “I know the feeling. We’ll get something to eat when we get to Suna.” Karin said. 

“Wait what exactly are we going to do in Suna?” Naruto asked. 

“That’s where we’re meeting with the label, aka our boss. I think the reason why Kakashi hired you in the first place right on the spot was that we need new material asap or else all of us are being dropped,” Sasuke said. 

“Wait...so am I just going to be dropped after I give you guys a song?” Naruto asked. 

“Doubt it. From what I’ve heard, you have talent.” Karin said. Naruto couldn’t help but smile at the compliment. No one else has really heard his lyrics like this, he just hopes he can keep up with writing songs, and good ones at that. A part of him felt intimidated, but since it was something he enjoyed doing, it was a lot easier to dive head first. Naruto also had to be careful, for all he knew, he could be signing his life away. He finished his coffee, hoping it was suppress his hunger for the time being and it kind of did. When they finally got to Suna, they were dropped off at a hotel, a really fancy looking hotel too. Naruto has never seen anything like it. The band was taken to a suite with two bedrooms and a kitchen and a living room. Both rooms came with two full-sized beds. Naruto definitely felt like he was way out of his comfort zone when he followed the band into the suite. Immediately Suigetsu ran to a room to claim his bed and Juugo followed suit. “Tsk. Boys.” Karin said as she walked over to the hotel phone by the tv where there was a menu right next to it, “I’m gonna order food service, anybody want anything?” 

Naruto walked over to her and looked over the menu, “there are no prices,” he pointed out.

“It’s complimentary of course there isn’t,” Karin said. 

“Oh um, I guess I’ll get the omelet breakfast without the veggies, please.” 

Karin ended up ordering a whole bunch of food due to some indecisive band members. When the food arrived, it was two carts full of food, it only made Naruto’s stomach grumble even more. He took his omelet and a utensil and made his way over to the dining table where he would eat. Sasuke and Karin had joined him with their plates of food while Juugo and Suigetsu sat in the living area trying to surf through the channels the hotel had to offer on the tv. It’s not that Naruto was shy, but that he didn’t really have anything to say, or that he did, but he just didn’t know how to form them into words, but also, he was too busy stuffing his face. 

“Can’t you eat normally? You look like a dobe.” Sasuke said. 

“Well you look like a teme.” Naruto retorted as he continued to shove food in his mouth. Truth is, it's been awhile since he’s had a meal like this so he couldn’t help himself. He’s made omelettes before, or at least attempted too, but never as light and fluffy like this and he wasn’t going to let someone ruin it for him. The omelette even had bits of ham! Sasuke responded back with a, “hn.” Before going back to his udon noodle soup that he got. Sasuke and Karin started to chat to one another about what the plan would be for today and from what Naruto gathered, they were going to stay here for a night since this is where their boss was located. Naruto picked up that his new boss was named Orochimaru. Then tomorrow the band was going back to “the house,” whatever that meant. The longer Naruto heard about what was even happening, the more he realized he knew nothing about what label Taka was under, the label’s reputation, and more. The more he realized this the more he felt like was going head first into a trap. The worst part? He’s so far from home and by that he meant the people he was already familiar with. At the end of the day, he was surrounded by strangers. By this time, Naruto would have woken up to make himself some ramen and sat himself at his desk to write more until Kiba’s honks alerted him that it was time to leave for work, but now he was eating a fancy omelette in a fancy hotel suite, in a hotel in the music capital of the world. It was easy to see the skyline from where he ate his breakfast since their room had a nice view overlooking the city. It was like he was a king for a day. That’s when it hit him. He quickly went to get his notebook and pen from his bag and went back to where he sat and opened to where he was writing his lyrics and just started to go off on the page like the world around him didn’t matter. He even failed to notice that Sasuke was observing him as he wrote. Naruto flipped through his past pages where he had remembered some past lyrics and attached them to this song. Time went by and Naruto was sitting alone at the table, his food was long since cold. Karin and Sasuke had exchanged a look to leave the blonde to his work. Naruto had never finished a song due to his busy schedule but now that he had the time too, he was amazed when he wrote the last line. He’s been working on this piece for a while now, and to finish it this quickly, “I’m… done…” Naruto said when he finally stopped writing. 

-x- 

“Kakashi, who is that?” Orochimaru asked. Orochimaru, also the guy who ran the label. The band had gathered in his large prestigious office that made Naruto felt like some sort of peasant. 

“That is the band’s new songwriter, Naruto Uzumaki. He already had material for the band you see, just like you wanted.” Kakashi said, not phased from Orochimaru’s ominous aura. 

“Oh really. Kakashi, I don’t like you hiring people without getting my word first.” He said, “But since you’ve failed to meet the first two deadlines, I’ll allow it. For now. But he still needs to sign some contracts if he expects to get a paycheck.” Orochimaru looked over at his assistant which was a signal for him to get said documents. 

“A contract?” Naruto asked and that’s when the silver-haired assistant came back with the contract that might as well be as thick as a book and handed it over to Naruto.“Contract my ass! This is no different than a book! Are you expecting me to sign my life away?!” Naruto practically shouted. 

“Well, either work for us and get paid and credit for your songs...or have your song magically disappear from wherever you wrote it down and get sent back home with nothing more than a road trip to and from Suna. Naruto swallowed a lump in his throat and looked at the contract and flipped through it. He couldn’t even read it properly since all that he could really pick up that he was signing his life away to this label. Everything was happening so fast he was starting to feel lightheaded. 

“Not to sway you in any way, but would you like to see what your paycheck would look like if you did sign the contract?” Naruto’s ears twitched as he looked up from the contract and back to the evil-looking man. _Damn him_. Kabuto had stepped up to Naruto and opened his folder where he had the check. Naruto practically choked on his own spit, he’d never seen so many zeros. Before he could look at it any longer, Kabuto closed the folder on him and walked back to where he stood by his boss. 

“C-can I have some time to look over the contract first?” Naruto asked. 

“Very well. You have three days. In the meantime, Kakashi gets his song recorded, let him get a taste of what his job would be like. Now leave my office at once, except for you Suigetsu, you can stay for a bit.” That made an unpleasant shiver run down Naruto’s spine as he made his way out of the office with the rest of the band members and Kakashi. 

“So that’s Orochimaru. Why do I have a feeling that I’m going to regret this?” Naruto asked, still looking at the brick of paper in his hands. “You probably will. If that contact is the same one we got it’s basically saying that we owe the company three albums and they have to go platinum or else it wouldn’t count, but the pay is pretty great. You are signing your life away but the sooner these albums get pumped out the sooner we can get out of this contract” Karin said.

“Three full albums?” Naruto looked through the contract to see where it said and surely enough he found the line. “And what happens if I break the contract?” Naruto asked. 

“Hn. You get sued dobe and from the looks of it, you can’t afford to get sued.” Sasuke said. Naruto couldn’t even get mad at the comment because he knew that was nothing but the truth. Naruto and the other three band members were told that they were going to relocate to the band house. From context clues, Naruto figured it had to be some place where the band members lived and he was right except he wouldn’t call this a house, but a mansion. Suigetsu was still nowhere to be found. Kakashi had told the three members to show Naruto where the studio was and so he was led into the mansion and instead of being taken on a tour, he was taken down to the studio which was just as impressive. “Well Naruto, this is your chance to show us the vision you have with this song of yours,” Kakashi said. Naruto walked into the sound proof room where all the instruments were displayed. He was followed by Sasuke, Karin, and Juugo. He didn’t even know where to start.

“Okay Sasuke, I need you to strum these chords,” Naruto said. He realized he had to walk everyone through his vision, it was going to be a long day. 

-x- 

Hours upon hours went by and Naruto’s throat felt raw. Everyone was reacting positively towards his vision which is what kept him going and as far as the instrumental went, they seemed to have caught onto his vision too except there was someone missing. 

“We need Suigetsu,” Naruto said into the mic, his voice sounding a little strained. Sasuke had grabbed a water bottle from the pile that was left on the side and walked over to the blonde and handed it over to him. Naruto thanked him as he took it and chugged it steadily. “He was supposed to be here a while ago, but it seems like Orochimaru had other plans. He’ll be back by tomorrow, for now, let’s call it a day. It sounds great Naruto, keep up the good work.” Kakashi said through a mic from the sound station. Naruto put his headphones back where he got them from the mount attached to his mic. 

“Finally, I need a much-needed break,” Juugo said as he got up and was the first to head out of the studio. By the way, he stormed out, Naruto could only assume that he needed to use the bathroom. Naruto turned to Sasuke who had taken his guitar off and back to its stand, “Hey you caught on really fast, thanks for that,” Naruto said. 

“It’s because I’m not a dobe, unlike you,” Sasuke said. 

Naruto couldn’t help but smirk, “I don’t think that’s it though,” He said, “You listen to the same music as I do, teme,” Sasuke just walked around him to head out of the studio, Naruto followed. “I mean I kind of already figured, your hairstyle is a big giveaway,” Naruto said. Sasuke rolled his eyes as he kept walking and headed towards the second floor, but Naruto wasn’t done with him. Naruto ended up following him to walk he assumed was his bedroom, before Sasuke could close the door on him, Naruto pushed himself in. “Come on don’t be mean, oh wow,” Naruto said when he looked around Sasuke’s room. Dark blue walls, black bedsheets, and comforters and pillows, there were modern touches along with posters of all types of bands. He even had a shelf full of CDs which Naruto immediately gravitated towards.

“Can you get out?” Sasuke said when he noticed the blonde invading his space. 

“I could,” Naruto said skimming over the CDs, showing no sign of leaving. Sasuke went over to him and took whatever CD Naruto took out and put it back where it was. 

“Leave.” He demanded. Naruto didn’t realize how close the other was until he looked up at him and immediately got caught up in the other’s eyes. Dark brown, almost black. 

“Oh, am I interrupting something?” Karin asked from the doorway. Sasuke stepped back from the blonde, “Not at all.” Sasuke said. 

“Sure. Well, Naruto I’m here to show you your room.” Karin said. _My room? _

* * *

A/N: So I kinda stop chapters when I feel like they should stop? And rn I needa chill. There will be more NaruSasu btw. I sense that this will be a slow burn, we’re just letting things marinate for now. 

Also, please leave some comments, I will be sure to respond/mention you in the next chapter! 

Here comes the disclaimers: 

**[1] Lyrics from the song King For a Day by Pierce the Veil. **

**I don’t own any lyrics used in this chapter. I don’t own any characters used in this chapter as they are apart of the Naruto/Naruto Shippuden series. **


	3. Drinking / Habits

-Recap- 

Sasuke Uchiha isn’t one for many words. He gave off a mysterious aura that tends to intimidate people. If only it intimidated groupies. From what he noticed, it only provoked them further, but that’s a different story. All in all, he never took an interest in anybody. To start from the beginning, he’s the lead guitarist of the band Taka. He wasn't the only guitarist the band has ever had either, he was the one that actually stuck. The band itself has been around in the making but it wasn’t until recently that some of their songs were finally climbing up the charts, but lately they’ve been struggling. Sasuke had sensed their singer burning out no matter how much Suigetsu tried to hide it. Sasuke knew that Suigetsu hated this contract more than anyone else apart of it and so he worked desperately to pump out songs, but now inspiration had become harder and harder to cling onto. Then Naruto came along. He didn’t want to admit it, and neither did the other band members, but he was giving the band hope. Watching the blonde write word afterword, it was almost mesmerizing. Sasuke was impressed. When they stepped into the recording studio, he couldn’t help but feel even more impressed when Naruto began leading them through his song he had put together and the vocals on him were definitely something to talk about. His range wasn’t high like Suigetsu’s, it’d be foolish to compare the two. When the blonde asked where Suigetsu was, Sasuke understood where he was coming from. There was definitely something missing to the song, but alas, it was break time until the lead singer made an appearance. Sasuke slipped the guitar off of him and planted it on the guitar stand. 

“Hey,” he heard caused him to shift his gaze to the blonde, “you caught on really fast, thanks for that,” Naruto said.

“It’s because I’m not a dobe, unlike you.” Sasuke retorted. He didn’t know why his defense was to have an attitude whenever he was spoken too, habits were hard to break, especially when you don't really see anything wrong with it. What he didn’t expect was the smirk that formed on the dobe’s face. “I don’t think that’s it though,” Naruto said, “You listen to the same music as I do, teme.” 

Sasuke thinned his lips as he ignored the blonde’s statement and started walking out of the studio. He heard the other following him as he continued to push his statement. He rolled his eyes and kept walking towards his room, but the blonde was still two feet behind him. When he opened his bedroom, he couldn’t close his door fast enough before the other trudged through. 

“Come on don’t be mean, oh wow,” Naruto said. Sasuke was pretty proud of how much he made his room his own. It was how he always wanted it, dark, music everywhere, and tidy. What he didn’t appreciate was that he wasn’t alone. He flashed an irritated look towards the blonde, but clearly, he didn’t catch it when he approached his shelf of CDs and started touching them. 

“Can you get out?” Sasuke said.

“I could,” Naruto said skimming over the CDs, showing no sign of leaving. Sasuke went over to him and took whatever CD Naruto took out and put it back where it was.

“Leave,” Sasuke demanded. His ears were hot and the look in his eyes wasn’t pleasant, but they couldn’t help but soften when they made eye contact with bright blue ones. He didn’t even realize how close he was standing to Naruto until Karin interrupted them. Sasuke pulled back quickly. He felt slightly embarrassed but also thankful that Karin made the dobe leave. _What the hell was that?_ Sasuke thought to himself. It was like they both froze, or maybe it was just him? He didn’t want to dwell on it whatsoever. Instead, he decided to get back to working on the song by writing his part of the music. 

-end of the recap- 

Naruto didn’t register how big the house was until he was taken on a tour. Karin showed him the main parts of the house, including the pool and game room. Naruto felt like a kid in a candy store. He didn’t care if his, “Wow!”s were getting annoying, he couldn’t help it. Finally, they made it to his new bedroom. Standing outside the door, he couldn’t help but feel excited and a little nervous. Karin opened the door,

“After you,” she said. Naruto’s room was big, bigger than his apartment even. It was pretty plain, which made sense considering the circumstances. The walls were white and the bed was huge and the comforter looked like a cloud. Naruto’s first instinct was to run and jump onto his bed. 

“You can do whatever you want with the bedroom, Kakashi just asks for it to not get destroyed. Your bag was already brought up.” Karin said as she was about to live but quickly stopped herself, “Oh and dinner is at 6,” and with that, she closed the door behind her. Naruto was in awe. He must have laid there for at least ten minutes just staring at the ceiling, letting the bed hug him. He had to remind himself that this was all his as long as he signed a contract. This thought lingered like a bad aftertaste. He knew that all of this was a ploy to get him to sign the contract too, and it was working. If he didn’t want to get into any contract, he wouldn’t have agreed to all of this. Maybe he thought he could just get a taste of what it would this life would feel like and then go back to selling records at the music store, but to go back to his regular life versus doing what he loved… there wasn’t even competition. He heard the faint strum of a guitar, now that he thought about it, Sasuke’s room wasn’t too far from his. Karin mentioned that the walls weren’t paper thin nor were they soundproof, but anything too loud would be heard to an extent. When he paid attention to what was being played, he recognized it from the recording session. It didn’t take a genius to pick up that Sasuke is the type to be left alone, Naruto just didn’t care. He snatched his notebook from his bag that had been placed on the ottoman and followed the sound of the guitar, once he located the room he opened the door -partially surprised that it wasn’t locked- and waved the guitarist who immediately paused his strumming and looked up to see the intruder. 

“Get out,” Sasuke said, he was sitting on the edge of his bed with an electric guitar in his lap that was connected to an amp a few feet away. Naruto did the exact opposite and closed the door behind him and sat on the bed by the sheet music Sasuke had been working on.

“Do you need me to say it in a different language, dobe?” Sasuke said.

“I just want to hear you play teme, I want to hear how it’s coming along.” Naruto leaned over to take a peek at the note sheet. Naruto barely knew how to read music, he mostly did everything by ear and learned everything he knew by listening to music or by watching videos to have things explained to make it easier. 

“Hn.” Sasuke shook his head before looking back at his sheet and started from the beginning. Naruto noticed that Sasuke had cleaned up his part to make it flow better compared to their attempts in the recording studio. Naruto wanted to sing along, but to avoid straining his voice he would replace the screaming with harsh whispering. Occasionally he would refer back to the written lyrics in his own notebook while lightly tapping his thigh to keep up with the pace of the song. 

“You sound ridiculous trying to sing like that.” Sasuke pointed out after they were done. 

“It’s called not wanting to hurt my throat!”

“I know, my point still stands.” He said. Naruto looked at Sasuke then to his instrument then back to him. 

“No, you’re not touching it,” Sasuke said, reading the blonde like an open book.

“Aw man, why not?! I promise I won’t do anything stupid.”

“Knowing you, not possible.”

“You don’t know me,” Naruto said, folding his arms across his chest. 

“I know that you’re most likely going to sign that contract,” Sasuke said, noticing the blonde had gone silent. Naruto lets out a whine as he fell back onto the bed, rubbing his eyes until he saw rainbows. He lets his arms fall on their own with one draped over his torso as he looked up to the ceiling. 

“I keep trying to think it’s another job opportunity but my gut keeps telling me no. I don’t know what to do.” Naruto said. He felt a shift on the bed, Sasuke had set his guitar down to lean against the nightstand before laying back on the bed too.

“You can still negotiate with Orochimaru.” Sasuke finally said. Naruto turned his head to the side, “come again?” 

“The contract, you can negotiate it. Especially with a song like yours. Orochimaru can’t lose you too soon when he knows a good songwriter is valuable. I was able to negotiate with my contract too. I’m not as tied in like the others.” Sasuke turned his head to meet the other’s gaze. What he wasn’t expecting was to see such a happy smile before Naruto turned over and started hugged Sasuke’s body into the bed. Sasuke tried to push him off but that seemed to only tighten the grip,

“Thank you!-“

“Get off!!!”

“For a teme your ideas arent so lousy!!”

“Dobe!! Get off!! Let, GO!”

Sasuke struggled to try and get the blonde off of him, he started nudging him off while trying to get up, in order to get more of a grip, he got on his side and pushed off with his elbow, managing to pin Naruto on his back. The blonde was laughing out of happiness while Sasuke was panting slightly. 

“What the hell is this?!” 

Naruto and Sasuke’s heads shot up to see Suigetsu at the door. When the songwriter noticed their position, he couldn’t help but blush. Sasuke had been hovering over him while he was pinning his hands to the bed. Of course, Sasuke had quickly pulled away the second he saw Suigetsu coming in. 

“What’s it to you, drama queen?” Naruto said, propping himself up on his elbows. Not realizing the extent of his words, Suigetsu walked up to Sasuke and was about to slap him before the guitarist stopped his wrist. 

“O-oh, are you two a-“

“No.” Sasuke said, “we’re not.” He shoved Suigetsu’s hand away. 

“Yeah, I’m not following…” Naruto said as he witnessed Suigetsu fume with anger from Sasuke’s response before shooting him a glare. Naruto’s eyes quickly shot around the room and his eyes landed on the alarm clock on Sasuke nightstand that it was almost six, “but honestly, that’s none of my business, I’m going to see what’s for dinner because I am hungry!” He said while getting up and quickly escaping the tension. When Naruto made it to the kitchen where he was hit with a yummy aroma that made his stomach grumble. The kitchen was big and white with an island with stools against them. There was someone cooking food and Karin and Juugo were sitting at the island with their plates in front of them. The chef looked over at the blonde and told him he could help himself to a plate. Everything was set up in a buffet-style on the island, Naruto grabbed a plate and some chopsticks and started plating some fish and rice and a few dumplings before sitting a few stools down next to Karin. He leaned over and whispered, “Who is that?” 

“That’s the chef, he usually comes in to cook us dinner. On Sundays, he makes us breakfast.” Karin said as she picks at her salad with her chopsticks.

“I also have another question… is there anything going on between Sasuke and Suigetsu?” Naruto suddenly asked. Karin stopped and looked up from her food, “Why do you ask?” Naruto’s face warmed up when he recollected the position he was in with the guitarist, he shook his head from the memory. 

“It’s just Suigetsu got really mad when he found me and Sasuke hanging out in Sasuke’s room.” He said. Karin raised an eyebrow at the response but decided to not dwell on it. 

“Well, they aren’t, but a lot of people ship them together and sometimes Suigetsu takes it literally sometimes. He probably got jealous because Sasuke hates it when people are in his room.” Karin says before taking a bite of her salad before continuing, covering her mouth as she spoke, “I’m actually surprised, I heard you guys working on the song in there. Sasuke doesn’t really have company in his room.” Naruto shrugged, he knew it was a bit of a challenge to convince the guitarist for him to hang out there, but the way he was treated made him doubt Karin’s words. He ate his dinner while browsing on his phone that was finally charged. He had gotten a lot of texts from people but had too much on his mind to look through them so scavenging through funny posts was ideal at the moment. Soon enough Sasuke had joined them for dinner, sitting the farthest away from the other members with a bowl of rice, some dumplings, and a side salad. Suigetsu was nowhere to be found again. The blonde observed the other and noticed his mood had gone sour just by the look on his face. For once he was listening to the unspoken rule of not bothering Sasuke. By the time everyone was done with dinner, Juugo slammed his wrist on the counter causing eyes to be on him. “Sasuke, you need to relax. It’s too quiet, we pretty much have a new band member. We have to celebrate.” Juugo said, “So let’s go follow me.” the drummer got up and walked towards Sasuke and grabbed him by the arm and yanked him towards the living room. Naruto and Karin followed closely behind. Juugo released Sasuke before going towards the minibar there was by the tv. “Karin, put on some music please while I make some drinks.” 

“You got it.” Karin grabbed one of the controls from the coffee table and pressed a few buttons until the music came on the surround sound. Naruto looked around the living, still amazed at how big and modern it was but was cut short when Juugo handed him a cup with brownish liquid in it. 

“What is this?” Naruto asked when he saw Juugo handing a cup with the same substance to Sasuke. 

“Bourbon, drink it fast and help yourself to whatever is at the bar,” Juugo said when he went back to the bar to mix his own drink. Naruto took a sniff of the drink and cringed when the scent of alcohol hit his nose. He wasn’t one for drinking, but also he wasn’t one to make impulsive decisions yet that has been his life for the past few days and so he took Juugo’s advice and chugged the gross substance. 

“Nice Naruto, I knew you had it in you!” Juugo said. 

-x- 

Karin was leaning relaxing on the recliner with a glass of wine at hand while Juugo, Naruto and Sasuke were playing a racing game on the big screen with their drinks resting on the table in front of them. Naruto must have been four to five drinks in so it was clear on why he kept getting stuck in the last place. 

“Victory!” Juugo shouted when he won while throwing his arms up before taking another swig of his drink. “Alright, for this victory, I want to take shots,” he said as he got up and walked to the minibar once again. 

“Where’s Suigetsu?” Naruto asked. 

“He decided to be annoying and lock himself in his room like he usually does,” Sasuke said, leaning back against the couch. 

“Oh, like you aren’t the same way,” Karin said. 

“I’m here aren’t I?” 

“Shots!” Juugo placed a shot glass with a white substance in it in front of Naruto on the table. He also placed on in front of Sasuke too. “You want one too Karin?” 

“No thank you,” She said, taking another sip of her wine. Juugo nodded as he handed Naruto a salt shaker. 

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Naruto asked. Sasuke rolled his eyes before taking Naruto’s hand and took the salt shaker and poured some salt on the back of his hand before doing the same to his own and passing it to Juugo. 

“Just follow our lead, dobe.” Naruto felt his eyebrow twitch but he did as he was told and followed their lead by grabbing the shot glass and threw his head back like the other two and felt burning liquid go down his throat. The look on his face said it all as he watched the others lick the salt up afterward and so he did the same. It eased the sensation but it was still awful. He heard Karin giggle at them and he couldn’t blame her for it. 

“what was that?” Naruto asked as he let out a cough, he looked around hoping there was something else he could take to ease the burn but the only thing he saw was Sasuke’s unfinished drink so he reached for it to take a few sips. 

“Just something to take off the edge,” Juugo said, already pouring another one. By the end of the night with 2-3 shots in Naruto’s system, he was leaning against Sasuke for support. Karin looked over and took note that Sasuke didn’t try to push him off as she continued to drink her third wine glass. 

“The world feels like it’s moving, but I think I’m not,” Naruto said, slurring a few words followed by a hiccup.

“Okay, I think Naruto is done for the night. You have been pushing him more than the rest of us Juugo.” Karin said. Juugo was laying back on the L part of the couch with his feet up. 

“I’m not even getting up from here, and that’s a lie because the only person I push is more,” hiccup, “...me,” Juugo said, snuggling into the couch. Sasuke hadn’t consumed as much alcohol compared to the other two. In fact, he only took the one shot and was still on his first cup until Naruto finished it for him. It’s not that wasn’t that big of a drinker, it’s just he didn’t trust himself. Naruto subconsciously snuggled into Sasuke’s shoulder only to pushed away by the other. His body went limp against the couch, he let out a giggle due to how fast the world was moving. Karin noticed how late it was getting, finishing her glass of wine, she leaned over to set it down on the coffee table before getting up to grab the throw blanket from the couch and tossing it on Juugo. 

“Well I’m going to bed,” Karing said, “Sasuke, I trust that you’ll help Naruto to bed?” 

“Hn.” Was his response. Karin said her goodnight before disappearing up the stairs. Sasuke looked over at the blonde, his eyes were barely open and there was a dopey smile on his face. Looking over at Juugo, it was clear that he had already fallen asleep. 

“Alright, dobe, time for bed,” Sasuke said, mostly to himself as he grabbed the other’s arm and pulled him towards himself and guided him to his feet. Naruto was able to keep his balance standing up, rubbing one of his eyes as if that was going to help his alcohol-induced vision. The hard part was the stairs, Naruto kept losing his balance but Sasuke was there to support him. Now that he thought about it, why didn’t he just leave him on the couch like Juugo? Oh well. They finally made it to Naruto’s door, 

“You’re heavier than you look,” Sasuke said. Naruto let out a giggle, looking up at Sasuke with half-lidded eyes. 

“You’re cute,” Naruto suddenly said, taking the other by surprise. He giggled some more, “I don’t know why I said that” Sasuke rolled his eyes, opening the bedroom door but Naruto didn’t move. 

“What is it now-“ Sasuke was cut off by the blonde planting his lips on his own. It took Sasuke a moment due to shock before pulling away and pushing Naruto’s face to the side. 

“I probably shouldn’t have done that,” Naruto said. 

“You think? Go to bed, dobe,” Sasuke said. The blonde nodded before making his way into his room and mumbling, “g’ night,” Sasuke made sure to see the blonde get into bed before closing the door and making his way to his room. He didn’t want to admit anything but by the way his cheeks warmed up, his face admitted it for him. 

-x-

Waking up for Naruto was brutal. The worst part? He remembered everything. His memory was hazy, but he remembered kissing Sasuke. He played in his bed as still as he could to not trigger any more pain this hangover was giving him. His throat was as dry as the desert, swallowing his own saliva felt impossible with the cottonmouth he was currently enduring. He knew he couldn’t lay their forever, he needed water. Slowly making his way out of the room, he found himself in the kitchen where he was in search of water. Eventually, he found the water bottles on the bottom shelf of the fridge and chugged the water as if his life depended on it. There was buzzing coming from his pocket, Naruto was reminded of all the messages he had gotten and he didn’t want to imagine how many more he has now. Naruto answered the phone and pressed it against his ear, only to be greeted by yelling. 

“IT’S ABOUT TIME YOU PICKED U!!” Kiba shouted, “I was waiting outside of your place yesterday honking like an idiot only to find out from Iruka that you’re on leave! Where are you?!” Naruto winced, hovering the phone away from his ear. He also forgot to keep in contact with Kiba, let alone anyone else, throughout all of this. 

“Stop yelling, I can smell your dog breath through the phone,” Naruto said.

“Hey, are you okay?? Where are you?” Kiba noticed the fatigue in Naruto’s voice. 

“I’m fine. I’m in Suna-“

“Suna?!”

“Yes, I’m in Suna, I’m working on a job opportunity, I’ll explain it all to you when everything is set in stone,” Naruto said, pressing his head against the cool surface of the fridge. 

“Alright...hey if you need anything, let me know okay? Even if I have to go all the way to Suna to get you.” Kiba said. Naruto cracked a smile, he felt a pang of guilt for ignoring all the missed messages. 

“Thanks, Kiba, I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll talk to you later okay?” Naruto hung up and slid his phone in his pocket. He needed to find where he put that contract and a painkiller.


	4. Contracts / Patience

Naruto finally got over his hangover a few hours after Karin had given him some pain killers and he made sure to stay hydrated. He hadn’t seen Sasuke all day which was probably for the best, but he also wanted to go over the contract with him since he was able to negotiate it in the past. Naruto was way out of his league and he felt the pressure. He looked over the contract and it was all just a lot of words. He kept reading the same paragraph but his head couldn’t process it. Sasuke was right about him thinking of signing the contract without realizing what he was getting into. He realized this when the contract seemed like it didn’t make sense, on purpose. Naruto got up and headed out of his bedroom with the contract at hand and went over to Sasuke’s room. Instead of intruding like he did last time, he decided to knock. He wasn’t surprised when he didn’t get a response, especially on the second time he knocked. So he decided to intrude anyway and still the door wasn’t locked. Sasuke was lying on his bed with headphones and a book at hand, but he had peaked over his book when he noticed his door open. 

He moved one headphone to the side, “The reason I keep my door unlocked is for when my presence is crucial. You’re going to make me want to change that,” Sasuke said. Naruto ignored him as he closed the door behind him and walked over to the bed and sat on the edge by his hip.

“I need help,” Naruto said with the contract in his lap. He turned his body to face Sasuke, “I have no idea what this thing is even telling me.” 

Sasuke looked at the other before bringing his book back into his point of view and said, “that’s not my problem.” 

“...What?!” The blonde’s eyebrow twitched. He didn’t feel defeated yet. He still had something up his sleeve. “Okay, if you don’t help me, I’m going to tell Suigetsu that we kissed,” he said.

“You kissed me, you were drunk, and blackmail? Really? I expected more from you.” Sasuke didn’t even move the book. 

“Maybe so, but Suigetsu isn’t going to think that no matter what you say. It’s all about being smart right?” Naruto heard Sasuke let out a groan before bookmarking his novel and setting it down to the side before sitting up. Naruto knew he could get him somehow.

“Fine and you’re an idiot,” Sasuke said as he grabbed the contract and started looking it over. Naruto didn’t even care for insults at this point. Naruto noticed that Sasuke had taken his headphones off his head and so he reached over and grab them and placed them over his own as the other read the contract. Naruto reached over to grab Sasuke’s phone to press play on whatever song that was on his lock screen. _Led Zeppelin, nice_. The phone and headphones were taken away from home and the song was paused.

“You need to keep your hands to yourself, dobe. Anyway, the contract is saying that you can write all the songs you want as an official member of Taka as long as you only write songs for the band and no one else for as long as Taka‘s band member’s contract is still valid, so my contact may be up sooner, but whoever’s contract lasts the longest is when you’re contract is done. Then there’s a lot of restrictions on what you can and can’t write about. You can still live this lavish lifestyle, but your paycheck is going to look like shit compared to what you could actually get if this contract wasn’t an issue. It’s basically trying to make you dependent on the label.” Sasuke said, paraphrasing as he flipped through the contract, “Everything else is kind of repeating itself, it mentions that when you’re told to go on tour you have to go whether or not you’re apart of the show. You can’t share anything on social media about the label, in fact, you’re social media is going to be monitored —which isn’t a surprise because mine is too, I barely use it anyway.” 

Naruto’s head was getting tired with all the information that was suddenly being fed to him. Sasuke could even see it in his face. He looked back at the contract before reaching in his nightstand drawer for a pencil and started marking down notes on the hefty document. Naruto shifted his body so he could be sitting in the same direction as Sasuke in order to look over his shoulder to see what he was doing. He seemed to be paraphrasing and taking side notes of what each paragraph and regulation was talking about. Since it was a long contract, the blonde watched him as he laid his cheek on his shoulder, reading the footnotes as they were being written. As he was doing so, it was starting to make a lot more sense, he was also amazed at the speed the other could read too. 

“Here,” Sasuke said and passed the contract to him when he was done. ”If something is still confusing, ask someone else.”

Naruto looked at the other with a smile on his face. 

“Please don’t touch-“ before Sasuke could finish his sentence, Naruto wrapped his arms around the other’s torso, “let go of me–!” Sasuke shouted, and Naruto did comply this time and even straightened his shirt out as if nothing happened. 

“When you don’t act like a teme, you’re actually really cool,” Naruto said. 

“Hn. The shorter your contract, the less I get to spend time with you.” 

“There it is! I was actually getting worried, for a second I thought you were being too nice,” The blonde said as he stood up from the bed, “thanks anyway, Sasuke,” he said before heading out of the room. Naruto was back in his own room, sitting at the desk the room came with and looked over the contract once again, trying to come up with negotiations. It was going to be hard to cover as much as he could, but he was determined. 

-x- 

Later that day, everyone was called to the studio to work on the new song Naruto had written. He’s yet to meet up with Suigetsu beforehand about the lyrics. In the studio, everyone was setting up their instruments and Suigetsu was trying to get the attention of a very unresponsive guitarist. It was kind of painful to watch, but no one said anything. 

“Suigetsu, if you don’t have anything to do then how about you look over the lyrics and listen to the pre-recording so you know what you’re doing,” Kakashi said into the mic from outside of the booth. Suigetsu rolled his eyes, but did what he was told. As he walked over to Naruto, he was given the lyric sheet. Suigetsu snatched it out of his hand and went over to the microphone to grab the headphones that were hanging from there and placed them over his head. As the band was still setting up, Kakashi pressed play on the sound board so that only Suigetsu would hear the pre-recording on his headset. Naruto left the booth to sit next to Kakashi.

“I don’t think he likes me very much,” Naruto said with a chuckle, not really caring about who liked him, he just found it amusing. 

“Suigetsu only likes two people, himself and Sasuke, and Sasuke doesn’t even like him,” Kakashi said. 

“Than why do people ship them together so much?” 

“Have you met their fangirls?” 

“Good point,” Naruto sat back in the rolly chair and swiveled his chair a little bit. 

“What fuck is this? I can’t even do that with my voice,” Suigetsu said into the microphone. 

Kakashi leaned over to his mic and pressed a button to talk into it. 

“Then sing the parts you can sing, we can still use Naruto’s audio for the parts you can’t,” Kakashi said as he took his hand off the button. 

“Wait seriously?” Naruto asked. 

“I mean yeah, you’re apart of the band right?” Kakashi shrugged. 

“Would that mean I’d have to perform the song with the band?” 

“Unless Suigetsu learns how to scream by the time it needs to be performed than yes. Besides, it might just sound better with two people,” 

Kakashi was right, Naruto did envision two voices, but he just assumed someone else in the band would handle the vocals. Now he had this new feeling of pressure, having to perform in a much bigger audience. What if the fans don’t accept him? He shook his head trying to dispel the thoughts. Nothing was even set in stone yet. Heck, he still had to negotiate the contract.

Once Suigetsu listened to the song once, he gave a thumbs up on that he was ready to record the vocals. Suigetsu mouthed the words he couldn’t sing just so he wouldn’t lose his place. As Naruto listened to the other sing, he concluded that he really liked his voice, it was able to reach notes he wasn’t able to reach. As far as the instrumentals, Naruto was satisfied with the drums and the bass. He already knew that he didn’t have to worry about guitar since he had gone ever it with Sasuke. Watching his song come to life made him feel overwhelmed inside, if he wasn’t careful, he felt like he could cry and honestly he was about too until he caught Sasuke’s glance, making him snapback into reality. The session wasn’t as long as the last one, in fact, Juugo, Karin, and Sasuke were able to leave while Suigetsu and Naruto stayed behind to record some more vocals. When they were working, Suigetsu was actually bearable. You’d think he was a completely different person. Naruto taught him the basics of screaming, giving him some water to warm up his vocal chords before he tried it himself. Once they got a few more recordings to tie the song together. He was honestly amazed on this process took, they must have really been on a tight schedule, and It helped that Naruto already had a vision on how his song wanted to be like. Once they were done, Naruto stayed behind to listen to all the recordings, the only issue was, he didn’t know how to edit anything together. Kakashi said that somebody would come in to walk him through the editing process and with that, he went back upstairs where the others would be. Sasuke was nowhere to be seen, probably in his room. Juugo and Karin were playing some video games in the living room while Suigetsu sat nearby on his phone. 

“Hey, Naruto wanna play?” Juugo asked. Naruto bit the inside of his lip, he knew he had to work on the contract, but didn’t he work on it enough?

“Sure, why not,” He said as he sat next to Juugo and Karin on the couch and he was given control. 

“Wait do we have to keep playing this game?” Karin asked, clearly tired of racing games. 

“Well no… what do you want to play, Karin?” Juugo asked. 

“Um… how about Band Hero? Naruto can show off more of his vocals,” 

“Hey but I’m usually on mic!” Suigetsu said.

“We can take turns,” Naruto said and with that, they started setting everything up. They got the instruments and connected them to the console after they switched the discs.

“You want to be on guitar,” Karin asked the lead singer.

“Please, remember how Suigetsu was last time he was on guitar?” Sasuke said suddenly. He had made his way downstairs, planning on going to the kitchen to get something to drink, but got distracted when he noticed everyone was setting up for Band Hero. Karin giggled at the statement, recalling the memory of a frustrated Suigetsu because he couldn’t keep up on the normal setting. 

“Than you play guitar, teme,” Naruto said with a smirk. 

“Yeah Sasuke, bet you still can’t pass the medium setting~” Karin teased. 

“Wait seriously?” Naruto asked. Sasuke rolled his eyes, they challenged him and so, of course, he had to show off. He walked over to the instruments and grabbed the guitar. Juugo was on the drums and he sat on the recliner and Karin and Naruto shared the couch while Sasuke made himself comfortable sitting on the armrest next to Naruto. The game itself had so many songs, way more than Naruto imagined. Usually these games had a good fifty songs, but apparently, Juugo had downloaded way more onto the disc when he was bored one day. Since Naruto was new to the band, he had first song privileges. Working at a music store made him familiar with almost every song, it was hard to choose until he finally decided. _Heartbreaker by Led Zepplin. _

“Nice choice, Naruto,” Juugo said. 

“Hn,” Sasuke said.

Naruto couldn’t help but smirk at his song choice knowing that Sasuke’s setting was on “very hard” and the song was guitar-heavy, luckily for him, it was one of his favorite songs to sing and he knew Sasuke must have had a liking to the song too. Sasuke readjusted himself so he would be leaning against the armrest rather than sitting on it, the guitar hanging from its strap that was hanging from his body. The song loaded and on the screen, showing a countdown, 

3...2...1...and Sasuke started it off. The band members collectively started bobbing their heads to the beat of the song on instinct as they started playing too. The chords were pretty easy at first, for Sasuke, but they were just getting started. Naruto had no problem with the singing as he lived his inner rockstar. It wasn’t long before the guitar solo came on, the part the blonde was anticipating because here on out the chords got a lot more difficult, but Sasuke was able to keep up.

“Whoo!” Karin shouted when Sasuke didn’t miss a note on his solo. Naruto was impressed. He stood up and moved his body to the beat. Naruto’s part came up and he started singing and expressing himself like a rock star would on stage, leaning against Sasuke’s side dramatically as he sang the final lyrics of the song, and Sasuke was actually into it, smirking as his side pressed back against the blonde as he played the final chords of the song. Seeing this Suigetsu was fuming on the inside. His arms were folded against his chest as he sat in the other lounge chair. 

“Wait can we play another classic? I’m really digging this vibe,” Juugo said. 

“You know Suigetsu hates anything before the 90s,” Karin said. 

“Is that true Suigetsu? Man, you’re missing out,” Naruto commented.

“Thank you!” Juugo exclaimed. Suigetsu’s eyebrow twitched, he looked annoyed. 

“Naruto could play another song then!” Suigetsu said. Everyone could tell Suigetsu was getting annoyed, as per usual, but no one really cared since it wasn’t out of the ordinary. Their score popped on the screen, A’s across the board, seeing this caused Naruto to cheer. 

“Alright, so I guess I’m picking the next song then,” Naruto said, looking through the playlist, knowing he wanted to play a song by Queen next. He scrolled down to the Q’s and there was a ton of songs by them. 

“You should play _Another One Bites the Dust_,” Sasuke suggested. Karin, Juugo, and Suigetsu turned their heads to look at Sasuke, surprised he even suggested a song, he usually goes along with whoever is choosing the songs and never suggested anything. The vocals weren’t even that hard compared to _Bohemian Rhapsody_ so it was clear that he wasn’t trying to sabotage the blonde. 

“Okay! I like that song,” Naruto said, not thinking much out of it, unlike the other band members. Sasuke ignored the looks, especially Suigetsu’s. This was definitely a song Naruto was clearly having fun too as he danced to the beat as he sang. Even Sasuke was mouthing the words. The fact that Sasuke looked like he was having fun for once with someone else, made Suigetsu green with envy. He didn’t want to be there anymore, so he got up and stormed off in the middle of the song when no one would notice. It wasn’t until after that song they noticed that Suigetsu left. 

Karin let out a sigh, “I’ll go check on him,” She said before leaving her bass behind, “you guys can keep playing,” she said as she went after Suigetsu and with that, they disconnected the bass from the band and continued to play with just the three of them. Three songs later it seemed like Karin wasn’t coming back and so they played one last song since Naruto’s voice was starting to get tired. Naruto went into the kitchen to get water to ease his throat, the personal chef was already there preparing their meal for the night. Just in time because he was starving. 

-x- 

Today was the day. He had that meeting with Orochimaru about the contract. He had left the mansion early that afternoon with Kakashi to get to Orochimaru’s office in the heart of Suna. His face didn't give too much of his feelings away, but if anybody checked his pulse, they would be concerned. He tightened the grip on his phone where he had the notes of things he needed to remember, this elevator right felt like it was taking an eternity. The only other person with him was Kakashi, something about how he needed to talk to Orochimaru afterward. Naruto was too busy thinking about what he was going to say rather than paying attention. Finally, the elevator got to the floor of his office. Getting off, he let Kakashi lead the way, soon enough he was met with cold, ominous eyes. 

“Naruto Uzumaki,” Orochimaru said, “sit.” Naruto sat on one of the chairs in front of his desk. The blonde was thinking how weird it was that he never saw the man not sitting at his desk, he kind of wondered how tall he was, thinking about the possibility of him being shorter than he was calmed his nerves. Imagine such a scary man being four feet and eleven inches? It would be amusing, to say the least. 

“The contract, Kabuto,” Orochimaru said, Kabuto had an extra copy of the contract and placed it on the desk facing Naruto. 

“About that contract. I’m here to negotiate,” Naruto stated. 

“Negotiate? And who said the contract was negotiable?” Orochimaru said. 

“I did. Hear me out, the contract is too restrictive and if you plan on having Taka hit the top charts, I’ll get them there, just not under these terms,” Naruto said. 

“And how would I even know you could even accomplish that?” 

“Why would you risk having someone you have no idea about signing that contract? It’s stated on page five that upon signing the contract, there’s a bonus of ¥500,000, I suppose that means you have a lot of money to dispose because you’re expecting the upcoming earnings to make up for it and yet...obtaining a songwriter or even multiple could result in you losing money if the earnings aren’t breaking even in the long run,” Naruto said, the expression on Orochimaru’s face didn't change, the blonde had been exuding a false confidence but the silence was faltering it. 

“So what would you propose, Uzumaki?” Kabuto intervenes. 

“Well, we’re currently working on a song as you know. I say to push back the final say on the contract, release the song as a single to see how people react to it if it doesn’t do well, just pay me for my time. If it does do well, I want 25% of the royalties.” 

“25?! You’re joking! None of the band members even get paid that much!” Kabuto exclaimed with laughter. 

“Fine,” Orochimaru suddenly said.

“What?! Orochimaru, you’ve gone mad!” 

“Kabuto, silence,” Orochimaru furrowed his eyebrows and looked dead in Naruto’s eyes, “but you have 90 days. If that song doesn’t even reach the top ten of the billboard charts, then forget it.” 

“And for my time, I want ¥50,000 for the song itself and just 8% of the royalties.” 

“Kabuto, write this all down to form a temporary contract, we can keep negotiating as we discuss further. You’re brave if you think a song could hit the charts within that time span,” Orochimaru said. Kabuto did what he was told, having a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk next to Naruto, he had his laptop on hand and started typing away the information that was already given to him. 

“Brave? Maybe, and I have more things I want to negotiate so that document isn’t official until it’s signed.”

-x- 

By the time Naruto left the office, Orochimaru didn’t seem as scary anymore. Guess the more time you spend with a person, the less intimidating they seem and Naruto was there for hours. He remembered Kakashi having to leave so he could get some lunch. On the way back to the mansion, the car ride was silent, mainly because the blonde was so tired of thinking. He never pushed his brain so hard before. Despite Orochimaru being a tough negotiator, they still managed to stay on the same page in the end. 

“That was really impressive, I didn’t know you had it in you,” Kakashi said. 

“Me neither, I gotta tell my boss that I’m gonna be gone a lot longer than I thought,” 

“At this rate, maybe you should just quit that job, don’t you think? What were you? A cashier right?”

“Yeah, but at the best music store in Konoha. Iruka is pretty great, I hope I’ll be able to see him again soon,” Naruto leaned his head against the window, watching the outdoors move past him. Kakashi peeked at him out of the corner of his eye before adjusting his gaze back onto the road. Once they got back to the mansion, he couldn’t wait to tell Sasuke. The sun was setting, releasing bright colors of orange, only to be dismissed by the blonde who ran inside. As always the house was quiet aside from the muffled noise of drums being played. There was always someone practicing their music here and it warmed Naruto knowing that there were people who felt the same way he did when it came to music. It was a bad start with the band, but he didn’t blame them for it, Kakashi must have spoken to them or something because once he was invited to play video games with them, the atmosphere changed. Juugo was actually cool and considerate. Karin was a rough start, but eventually she warmed up to the blonde. Suigetsu was an outlier and Sasuke? He wasn’t quite sure. Kakashi was always quiet, but he also had his nose in his phone a majority of the time, at one point Naruto had peaked at what was doing and he was just… reading. Reading what the blonde wasn’t sure. He still needed to call Kiba at some point too. When Naruto made his way to Sasuke’s room, he wasn’t there, so he had to keep looking, but the idea of getting lost in this house was something he wasn’t excited for. The big window at the end of the hall had the sunset beaming through it. Naruto walked over to the window saw how much of the city this house overlooked, he gazed at it in awe. Naruto could see the backyard, including the pool, he noticed Karin and Suigetsu swimming, maybe they would know where he is. Making his way back down the grand staircase, he remembered there were big doors that opened to the backyard in the living room. Up close, the pool felt even bigger. Sasuke had been out here too, under the shade, but the way the sun was setting, getting sun in his eyes was inevitable. Before Naruto could make himself known, Sasuke had already gotten up to head inside. By the way he was fully dressed, it was clear that he didn’t swim.

“You’re back, that took a while,” Sasuke said. Naruto nodded and couldn’t help but smile widely,

“I take that the negotiating went well,”

“Yeah! So basically-“

“Don’t give me any details you moron. Official contracts are confidential,” Sasuke said, cutting him off as he headed back inside.

“But you helped me with it, teme,” Naruto argued as he followed him inside. 

“Did you forget why I did that already? It’s been a day,” 

Naruto rolled his eyes as he followed the other inside, not noticing the death glare Suigetsu was shooting at him from the pool. 

“Tsk. What does Sasuke even see in him?” Suigetsu said, mostly to himself, but since Karin was there on a huge floaty, she responded with, “you say that with anybody that Sasuke gives an ounce of attention too,” 

“That’s not it though, Karin! The other day I walked into Sasuke’s room and he had Naruto pinned on his bed!” He exclaimed. 

“And what was the context?” 

“The what?” 

Karin shifted her gaze from the magazine she was reading to the other, “do you know why he was doing that? You probably walked in at the wrong time, I’ve noticed that they tend to bounce off each other, but it’s mostly Naruto annoying him,” 

“You’re joking, right? Okay well, the bottom line is, Sasuke likes him,” 

“Okay fine, you have a point. I’ve noticed it too,” she says as she hid behind her magazine. 

“See! And I hate it!” 

“I think it’s kind of hot actually, have you seen them bicker?” Karin said with a giggle, she didn’t need to look over her magazine to know that Suigetsu wasn’t happy with that response. 

“Not the point, Karin!” 

-x- 

Karin wasn’t wrong about the bickering. In fact, the rest of the band was surprised that Sasuke can say more than three words at a time. At dinner, they just kept going back and forth and when they weren’t, Naruto would do something to encourage more bickering, like now. Naruto had been hovering his chopsticks over Sasuke’s plate as if he was going to take something before the guitarist pushed them away with his own chopsticks. 

“You’re a child,” Sasuke stated. 

“Yeah well, you’ve got the spirit of an old man,” Naruto retorted. 

“Hn,” Sasuke took another bite of his breaded pork strip. 

“So you admit it? You’re going to say that I’m right?” Naruto edged on. Karin was eating a few stools down, watching them out of the corner of her eye, she couldn’t help but feel her cheeks warm up as the chemistry radiated off of them. If Naruto made himself known to the public, she could only imagine how the fangirls would react and that’s when she got an idea. She took out her phone and went on her social media where she opened the camera and started recording them. 

Jokingly she then says, “a day in the life with Sasuke Uchiha, bickering with his wife,” Naruto and Sasuke looked over at her, 

“Wife?! As if!” Naruto shouted. 

“Well you sure are acting like one,” Sasuke said. Karen turned the camera to face herself and sighed while shaking her head before she stopped the recording. 

“Are you seriously going to post that?” Juugo asked from where he sat next to her.

“I don’t know, can I, Naruto, Sasuke?” Karin asked. 

“I don’t care,” Sasuke responded, not realizing what he was getting to get into, same with Naruto because he only shrugged. Karin smirked as she uploaded it to her story. Now we wait. 

The two went back to what they were doing, in this case, it was Naruto trying to claim that he wasn’t some wife. While this was happening, Karin kept refreshing her page and allowed the views and reactions to roll in. She started seeing comments of exclamation points and shocked emojis. 

“What the fuck is this?!” Suigetsu shouted as he stormed in the kitchen, his phone at hand. 

“Oh chill out, it’s just a joke,” Karin said. Sasuke raised an eyebrow before pulling out his own phone and getting on his page where he was starting to get tagged in a lot of posts. Naruto didn’t normally get a lot of notifications so he kept them on, but that was going to have to change because all of a sudden, his phone started buzzing like crazy in his pocket. Naruto took his phone out and nearly choked at the rate of notifications that were coming in. He unlocked his phone and went on his page and it was full of people tagging him and asking ‘is this him?!’ ‘I think that’s him!!’ Sasuke had looked over at his phone only to get a hold of it so he could go into his settings where he turned off the notifications for him before giving it back. 

“We didn’t think this through,” Naruto said. 

“You think?! Ha! This is going to be hilarious!” Juugo said with a mouth full of tonkatsu. Suigetsu stomped over to Naruto and pushed him, but not hard enough to push him off the seat. 

“You need to stay away from Sasuke!” He said. 

“Hey! I don’t know what crawled up your ass and died, but I’ve had it with your nasty attitude!” Naruto said to the fuming singer. 

“Annoying,” Sasuke said, silencing the both of them. Sasuke got up to put his dirty dishes away, “both of you are annoying, but Suigetsu, I can’t stand you,” he stated, “Now, I’m going to go up to room, I request that no one bothers me unless it’s Kakashi himself,” Sasuke walked past the both of them, heading out of the kitchen. 

“My point still stands,” Suigetsu muttered. Naruto shot a glare at the other before going back to his food. Now that his notifications were off from his social media, now he just had to deal with the incoming texts from his friends, especially Kiba. He forgot that he hadn’t called him back yet. After he finished his dish, he cleaned up after himself before heading back to his own room to get some privacy for himself before calling Kiba. 

“Naruto, what the hell is going on?!” 

“Okay, Let me start from the beginning,” he said into his phone, “get comfortable.” Naruto laid back on his bed and started explaining Kiba everything and answered any questions he had and there were a lot.


	5. Social Media / Headaches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So this chapter is setting up for the next chapter (duh) so that means the next one is probably going to be really long, I think. I should update by next week depending on how busy I get due to work and college. If only I was this dedicated to my studies and hw :( 
> 
> Be sure to leave a comment! I appreciate them so much, I'll be sure to respond to any comments I get! 
> 
> Disclaimers:
> 
> [1] This is the first line from the song Sarcasm by Get Started.

It was too early for anyone to wake up unless you had too. The blonde was an exception. Since he wasn’t able to get back to sleep, he figured he would take a bath in order to pass the time. There was a door next to his closet that took him to his own bathroom. When he first saw his bathroom he was in awe, he still is. Filling the tub took a while due to how big it was. Once it was getting close to the depth that he wanted, he stripped from his clothes. He saw his reflection in the mirror over the sink. He brushed his hand over his facial scars that resembled cat whiskers. The were faint, but the memory attached to them ran deep. He was surprised that no one really asked about them, then again, it would be rude to ask right off the bat, not that some people were already rude to him from the beginning, but that’s besides the point. On the counter next to the sink there was a basket full of bath essentials and saw a bag of bath salts. He grabbed it and proceeded to add them to the water. He didn’t realize how tense he was until he stepped into the tub and allowed his body to relax. 

After Karin had posted that mindless video, he had to be off his social media for the rest of the night due to how overwhelming it got. His follower count skyrocketed once his profile was discovered and people were either upset with him or they were curious about him. Upset because he wasn’t Suigetsu and curious because he was the cute blue-eyed blonde that was referred to as “Sasuke’s wife”. Rumors were spreading that the blonde was Sasuke’s new lover, lowkey, he didn’t mind all that much, especially since it could be worse. It could have been Suigetsu. Not only that, Sasuke was so attractive. He had already concluded this from the first time he saw a picture of the band, but getting to know him only made it worse. He found him cute, he had urges to hug him and he got excited when he would help him with the song. The memory of him drunkenly kissing him made his cheeks burn. He remembers Kiba mentioning that a person’s true intentions comes out when their drunk and if that was his true intentions, he hoped that it would have happened later on and not a few days after meeting him while drunk. Perhaps a romantic setting, in a pool under the moonlight. Naruto’s mind drifted off to picturing Sasuke without his shirt on and he felt himself digging into a dangerous territory. He tried shaking the image off, but it wouldn’t go away, instead he felt blood travel to a different part of his body. He sunk deeper into the water. At least he was alone. 

After his bath, he was no longer tired. He decided to get out once the water had gotten cold. Naruto dried his hair lazily with a towel as he walked into his bedroom. He dug through his bag, slipping on orange cargo joggers with black lining and a black t-shirt. It was still early to find anybody to bother, luckily the sound of his stomach grumbling gave him something to do. He grabbed his phone and finally decided to look on his social media as he walked out of his room. The second the app loaded, he was hit by an abundance of comments, likes, and followers. He had never seen numbers that big pop up before. Scrolling through the comments of his last post was surreal. It was a video of him singing a cover of Taka’s most popular songs. At the time, he did the cover because he hoped it would bring in more viewers since the song was trending. The comments had people swooning over how cute he was or how blue his eyes are. Then there were some comments that were too harsh to read more than once, but he did so anyway because of how mean they were, especially about his scars. A lot of people were comparing him to Suigetsu, others were already making a ship name for him and Sasuke. He was so focused on scrolling, when he turned the corner he ended up bumping into a certain guitarist and ended up dropping his phone. 

“Watch where you’re going, dobe,” Sasuke said. Naruto picked up his phone, almost dropping it again when he realized Sasuke was shirtless. He had a shirt hanging from his right shoulder and sweat droplets clung to his chest and forehead.

“Staring is rude, haven’t your parents ever taught you that?” 

Naruto blinked and shook his head to get his mind out of the gutter, “uh…” Naruto couldn’t get any words out. To let Naruto keep any of his dignity left, Sasuke just walked around him, in the direction towards his room. The blonde wanted nothing more to sink into the ground beneath him. He was surprised that he didn’t faint at this point with how much blood has been rushing to his head. He hated this feeling, having a crush and all. The worst part about this crush is that he would probably never know for sure if Sasuke even had an ounce of mutual feelings, the guy was as emotionless as a statue except for when he’s annoyed. Before he dwelled too long in his embarrassment, he kept walking to the kitchen to get breakfast, at this point he didn’t know if he had an appetite anymore. 

He thinks that Sasuke helping him with the contract really amplified his crush on the guitarist. Without him, he would have been lost and signed his life away. He still couldn't believe that he was able to face Orochimaru like that. The way the man spoke, they way he just stared at him made his hand tremble but anything the man said about his contract, Naruto was ready to negotiate. Naruto was beginning to think of a phrase that could potentially turn into a song. He took out his phone and pulled up a notes app and started typing it down so he wouldn’t forget later. 

_[1]You’ve got me shaking by the way you’re talking …_

That’s all he had for now, but he knew he would get back to it later. 

The agenda for today was to finish editing the first song. Naruto had been told by Kakashi that that was the plan, but this was also one of the things he wasn’t paying attention too when Kakashi was explaining it in the car. Naruto forgot what time this was going to happen, he didn’t even know the editor’s name. He didn’t even know when the song was going to be released and if he needed to design something for the song cover or if that was unneeded since it wasn’t an EP or a Single since it’s only one song. He had an idea for a song title but he didn’t know for sure just yet.

After breakfast, he just sat in his spot in the kitchen at the big fancy island. His plate was empty and was pushed away from him just so he could give himself room to browse on his social media. He wasn’t ever this addicted to looking through his profile or feed, but with all the activity, he couldn’t help it. What snapped him out of it was when his phone was out of his hands. 

“Hey!” Naruto said.

“You’re gonna make yourself crazy if you keep looking through your comments like that,” Sasuke said as he placed the phone on the island facing down. Sasuke was wearing a shirt this time, a light grey long sleeve with black washed out ripped jeans, his hair was slightly damp and it hadn’t been done in his usual style. 

“People are saying that we’re dating,” Naruto said. 

“Let them say what they want,” Sasuke said as he started to make himself some breakfast. 

“But it’s not true,” 

“You’re going to get that a lot, and there’s no use fighting it because people are going to make up their own conclusions regardless,” Sasuke had washed some rice in a bowl of water in the sink, pouring out the water before adding some more until the water wasn’t foggy, once the water was clear, he poured out some excess water before adding it to the rice maker that sat on the counter next to the fridge and turning it on. A frown found itself on Naruto’s face, he folded his arms on the counter top, his phone buzzed indicating that he got a text so he flipped over his phone to read it,

_You’re dating the guitarist?! _

_-Kiba _

Naruto let out a groan before placing his forehead on the cold granite. By the time everyone had made an appearance for breakfast, Naruto had washed his dish and made his way to his room to find things to keep his mind off his phone. Of course, he eventually texted Kiba back that he wasn’t dating Sasuke before leaving his phone far away from him on his night stand while he continued working on possible songs at his desk. By the time noon hit, Kakashi had sent Karin to get Naruto for a band meeting in the living room. Once they got there, Naruto noticed a change in the atmosphere, especially since Kakashi had his arms folded and he didn’t know whether he was tired or disappointed, maybe both. Karin sat next to Sasuke on the couch while Naruto stayed standing. He hadn’t realized how long he was sitting down until now. 

“Great, everyone is here,” Kakashi said, “ To start off, Karin, what you posted last night was out of line,” 

“I thought it was funny,” Karin retorted as she folded her arms on her chest. 

“I woke up to #SasukesWife on the trending page this morning, it was pretty funny, and they’re loving Naruto! The ladies love the whole blonde hair blue-eyed look,” Juugo defended. Naruto blushed at this, remembering the hashtag and seeing all the comments under his posts.

“Not the point,” Kakashi sighed, “Nobody was supposed to know about him yet,” 

“When were they going too?” Karin asked. 

“I had an interview scheduled, I was going to wait until the song was ready for they could play it on the show,” Kakashi said. 

“But wait,” Naruto interrupted, everyone turned to look at him which made him a little nervous for some reason, deja vu. “Isn’t this a good thing? I mean think about it, now people are curious about me and if I’m going to be apart of this interview then maybe more people will tune it,” 

“Pfft. please, as if you’re any special,” Suigetsu said with an eye roll as he looked away from the blonde. Naruto frowned, but before he was able to figure out something clever to say, Kakashi cut him off.

“No wait Suigetsu, I think Naruto has a point,” Kakashi said. He thought about it some more before nodding his head, “I have to make a few calls… Oh and Naruto, the editor should be coming any minute now to help you with the song,” He said before pulling out his cellphone and headed outside to the backyard for some privacy. 

“Now that Kakashi is gone, I’ll give you a piece of my mind!” Naruto said, facing Suigetsu, putting his fist up in a threatening way, but that resulted in Suigetsu looking bored. The bored singer crossed his legs from where he sat on the lounge chair. This only fused Naruto’s anger. He went over to the cocky singer and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, 

“You’re really asking for it!” 

“Get your hands off me you freak!” Suigetsu shouted, “Sasuke! Help!” but when Suigetsu looked over, Sasuke was on his phone as if nothing was even happening. The singer frowned as he pushed Naruto away from him. 

“Whoa what did I miss?” a new voice suddenly said. Everyone looked over to see who said that and they were familiar with him because he had worked with them on their last songs, but then, 

“Shikamaru?!” Naruto yelled in surprise. 

“You know him?” Karin asked, but what took everyone off guard was Naruto’s big smile again as he ran up to the editor and hugged him. 

“Naruto! I heard you were hanging around here,” Shikamaru said as he patted him on the back as he was enduring Naruto’s big hug. 

“Haha! Yeah it’s been hectic,” Naruto pulled away from the hug but still had his hands on his shoulders to get a good look at him, “You look great Shikamaru, how long has it been?” 

“Hmm let’s see… Are you still with Sai?” Shikamaru asked. 

Naruto pulled away from him and shook his head, “No way, that’s history,” he said as a shiver of disgust went down his back at the thought. 

“Then yeah, it’s been a while,” Shikamaru said with a chuckle.

“Wait what are you doing here?” Naruto asked. 

“I’m here to work on the song, I should have figured you had something to do with it,” Naruto was ecstatic to hear this that he forgot the other band members were watching them, Naruto was just about to head to the studio before Shikamaru stopped him and spun him around to face the members and wrapped his one arm around his neck in a friendly way, 

“Friend from high school,” Shikamaru said. Some of the band members let out a collective ‘ohh’ and nodded. After that, they started heading down to the recording studio. 

“Speaking of high school, are you still with Ino?” Naruto asked. Shikamaru shook his head, 

“No uh, after first semester of college we kind of just drifted apart. The distance took a toll on both of us so we went on break for about a week and after that, we realized that it was time to just end it. I still love and talk to her to this day, of course, she’s still my best friend and she’s so much happier now,” they both sat down on the rolly chairs and rolled over a bit to be in front of the computer screen that was more off to the side from the sound system. 

“I see… wow things have really changed huh, are you happy though?” Naruto asked. 

“I am actually,” Shikamaru said, trying to deny his face turning pink as he turned on the computer where all the song files were saved. Naruto may have trouble reading people sometimes, but he wasn’t that dumb to miss what he actually meant. 

“What’s her name~,” Naruto asked, poking at his sides. 

“Her name is Temari,” 

Shikamaru must have been there for hours to not only work on the song with Naruto, but they also caught up whatever’s been missed since they’ve last seen each other. Naruto and Shikamaru had been friends since freshman year, the blonde had been accepted in Shikamaru’s friend group and for once in his life he actually had friends. Ever since then they stuck through high school. College is what made it tricky. A lot of his friends had gone away to college while he stayed behind because he couldn’t afford university. It’s not that it mattered, the blonde wasn’t so much of an intellectual in the first place. He tried going to a local college, but after the first two or so weeks, that’s when he decided to drop all his classes and just started working. It was stressful and the workload was so much more than what he was used too. Shikamaru on the other hand went to the University of Suna. Keeping contact was difficult with Naruto working full time no matter where he was employed and Shikamaru’s dedication to finish school early just so he could have less school so he could get a job and retire sooner made it just as hard, but seeing each other again made it seem like nothing has changed and they could continue where they left off. 

“Naruto, this sounds amazing, does it even have a name yet?” Shikamaru asked. The blonde thought for a bit, thinking over the lyrics of the song. He hadn’t yet, but then it clicked. 

“King For A Day,” he finally said. The song was uploaded to Naruto’s phone. it was done. The feeling was surreal. Shikamaru placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a smile, 

“You finally made it Naruto,” he said, “I’m so proud of you,” 

Naruto felt his eyes water, looking at the downloaded recording in his phone, even if his song doesn’t appeal to everybody, he still finally finished one and it was going to put it out there officially for the whole world to listen too. He was determined to bring Taka to the top, not just because of his contract, but for himself. He felt Shikamaru ruffle his hair. Naruto looked up at him only to lean forward for a hug. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. Shikamaru hugged back. They stayed like that for a few moments until it was cut short by hearing the sound of someone’s footsteps coming down the stairs to the studio. Naruto wiped his eyes quickly and ran his hand through his hair. It was Kakashi checking in, 

“How’s it going?” Kakashi asked. 

“Just about done actually,” Shikamaru said, “I assume I’ll get a direct deposit by the end of the day,” 

“As always,” 

Shikamaru looked over at Naruto again and gave him a pat on the shoulder before standing up, “hit me up anytime, now that we aren’t so busy,” 

Naruto stood up too, he gave Shikamaru one last hug before walking him to the front door with Kakashi following a few steps behind them. Once Shikamaru left, Naruto turned to Kakashi. 

“The video,” Kakashi said. Naruto swallowed what it felt like a pit in his throat, he hadn’t checked his phone since this morning so he couldn't imagine how much more attention he could have gotten since then. 

“Taka is scheduled for an interview in two days and they want you to be there. I already talked to the rest of the band. When asked about you and Sasuke, don’t give them a straight answer. I already spoke to him about this too,” Kakashi said. 

“Don’t give a straight answer? But we’re not even a thing, I just met him!” 

“The audience doesn’t know that nobody but us knows that. It’s to keep everyone on their toes. More publicity, more attention towards the song, it’s perfect,” 

Naruto just nodded, he couldn’t find the words to respond. He figured this was how publicity stunts are made, but he didn’t know this was how they feel like. 

“I just have one question, should I still post?” 

“Post about what? The video? I’d say no, post what you would usually post for now. As for the song, I know Shikamaru sent me a copy via email, it’ll be uploaded by tomorrow morning so it can be mentioned in the interview. They’re going to want you guys to perform it too… wow, this is short notice… so practice starts at ten in preparation for the interview.” 

Naruto’s eyes widened, “Perform?! I’ve never performed on TV before!” 

“You’ll be fine. Now, I gotta run some errands,” and with that the grey-haired man left the house. Naruto must have stood there for a moment because he couldn't bring himself to move just yet. He had to _perform _on TV. Finally his legs started moving. He went to the living room and no one was there and so he ended up heading to the stairs. He found himself in front of Sasuke’s door again. He noticed that he felt comfort when he has him as company. He knocked on the door, but no one answered. He knocked again but this time it was a warning knock before opening the door. Sasuke was on his bed once again with headphones over his ears but it was connected to a mini amp attached to his guitar so he could hear his strumming through his headphones rather than aloud. This time Sasuke didn’t notice the blonde until he went over and sat on his bed. 

“I’m going to start locking my door,” Sasuke stated as he slid his headphones down to his neck. 

“Can I just listen to you play?” The blonde suddenly ask, “you won’t even know I’m here,” 

Sasuke looked at him for a moment and sighed in irritation before unplugging the mini amp from his guitar. While he was setting up, Naruto laid back on his bed with his legs dangling off the edge. Sasuke started strumming his instrument, continuing what he was originally doing before he was disturbed. The amp was at a lower volume than usual, causing Naruto to relax a little more as he listened to every note being played. It was a piece Naruto wasn’t familiar with, he curled up on his side, his back facing the other, allowing himself to sink into the well-made bed. So much had been on his mind, he even tried thinking of a song made out of his thoughts, but it was no use. 

Hearing Sasuke play was different. Naruto’s eyelids felt heavy after a while.

-x-

“Dobe, wake up,” 

Naruto’s eyelids opening slowly, his eyes were glossy with sleep. His eyes registering to what was in front of him… Sasuke. His eyes opened a little wider, he shot up, using his arms to support him, nearly causing the both of them to bump heads but Sasuke’s reflexes were faster as he moved out of the way. 

“What time is it?” 

“Almost seven, and here,” Sasuke tossed him his phone from his nightstand, “It kept going off, how that didn’t wake you is beyond me,” Naruto caught his phone and noticed it was turned off. He turned it back on only to be overwhelmed with messages from Kiba about his dog as usual. Naruto smiled at his phone as he started replying to his messages. 

“Wanna see a cute dog?” Naruto asked, it was rhetorical though as he opened up a picture of a white dog, Kiba’s dog, and showed it to Sasuke. 

“You’re phone kept going off because of a mutt?” 

“Don’t be mean, you’re just jealous because you don’t have anyone sending you cute dog pictures,” Naruto said. Sasuke rolled his eyes, sitting back against the headboard, his one leg dangling off the bed. He had already put his guitar on its stand and started reading not too long ago. He didn’t want to admit it, but he liked the company. 

“Hey Sasuke, Kakashi told me about the whole interview thing, I think it’s weird, having to play with people’s emotions in order to get them to listen to our song,” 

“Yeah, but it makes a difference believe it or not. You’ll get used to it, I would say have fun with it, but I told that to Suigetsu a while back and now he won’t stop being annoying,” 

Naruto chuckled at that, “I can’t promise that I won’t be annoying,” he said with a smirk. He opened his camera as he stood up. He started recording, going up to Sasuke he booped his nose with his finger which naturally caused the other to glare at him before pushing the camera away and that’s when Naruto stopped recording and immediately he posted it to his story. 

“You’re right because you act like being annoying is a personality trait,” Sasuke snapped. 

“Harsh! But at least I don’t act like being emo is a personality trait!” 

“Don’t make me hit you, dobe,” Sasuke warned, he had already put his book down. 

“Hit me then! Bet you hit like a wimp!” Naruto retorted. Sasuke narrowed his eyes before standing up quickly, grabbing the other by the collar of his shirt angrily. 

“You’re kinda cute when you’re mad,” Naruto teased, and that had done it. The blonde found himself barely dodging Sasuke’s hits. Naruto tackled the other to the bed and they started wrestling like a pair of young teenage boys. Soon enough, Naruto found himself pinned on his stomach with his one arm held down by Sasuke’s one hand while his head was being pinned by Sasuke’s other hand. Both of them were panting, eventually, Sasuke released him. 

“That was fun,” Naruto admitted, “you’re really strong,” 

“It’s called working out, maybe you should try it,” 

“I work out! … sometimes. Wait, is that why you were all sweaty and shirtless this morning?” Sasuke didn’t respond verbally, but the look on his face was enough.

“I’m getting dinner,” Sasuke then said before making his way out of the room. That’s when Naruto realized how hungry he was too and followed suit. 

The other band members had already eaten so it was just him and Sasuke eating. As suspected, after dinner, Naruto’s social media was blowing up again, seeing his video get reposted everywhere. It was actually amusing seeing how something like a five-second video could be taken in a different direction so fast. Is this what being famous is like? Sasuke said he would get used to it, but he wondered how long it would be until he could. 

“Oh! You haven’t listened to the finished product yet, no one has!” Naruto said, “Sasuke, everyone needs to be in the living room right now!”

“What do you want me to do about it? And can’t it wait?” 

Naruto groaned before pulling Sasuke from the chair and dragged him to the living room, he was surprised that Sasuke even let him. Juugo was already there playing video games as usual.

“Where is everybody else?” Naruto asked. 

“Beats me. Hey! You’re in my way!” Juugo exclaimed when Naruto walked in front of the tv because the speaker was right next to it. 

“Than pause it! Don’t you want to hear the song?” Naruto said. Juugo looked at him for a second before pausing the game. Naruto plugged the aux cord into his phone and turned up the speaker to a high volume. He figured if it was loud enough, the other two members would come down eventually. He went to his mp3 folder on his phone where he had the song and pressed play. 


	6. Eyes are the Window of the Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I haven't started my college homework :)) love that for me. I hope you enjoy this thicc chapter, I'm pretty sure it's the longest chapter I've ever written aside from the one time I felt like writing a lengthy SasoDei two-part fic like 6 years ago. 
> 
> I've been putting together a playlist for this fanfic on Spotify, let me know if you would like the link to it and I'll for sure post it in the next author's notes. 
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read this fic and if you like it, I would appreciate any comment at all, I'll be sure to reply to any I get.
> 
> Disclaimers: The song lyrics that'll be mentioned in this chapter are from a song called Sarcasm by Get Scared. These lyrics don't belong to me, they just inspired me to keep writing this fic.

Naruto’s song blasted through the living room, it sounded different compared to what the band would usually do yet not too far off. The way Naruto and Suigetsu’s vocals went together mended perfectly. Naruto’s favorite part was the instrumentals. The way the guitar played turned out better than he imagined made him excited. The sound of the song blasting through the speakers attracted the rest of the band members to the living room. Naruto couldn’t help but sing along with the song, his song. Based on everyone else’s expressions, he could only assume that they liked it too. He glanced over at Sasuke and they had locked eyes for a moment. Naruto was looking hopeful, seeking positive affirmation from the guitarist. he nodded as a half-smirk appeared on his lips and with that it felt like a thousand words to the songwriter. 

“This sounds amazing!” Juugo said with excitement.

“I don’t think amazing cuts it,” Karin said, “seriously Naruto, you have a talent. I can’t wait to perform this on The Ino show,” 

“Wait, we’re performing on that show?” Naruto said as he turned to Karin. He really had to pay more attention to what people were saying to him. 

“In one ear, out the other, typical,” Sasuke said. Naruto shot a glare at Sasuke, but he sighed knowing that it was true. 

“Oh who cares, we still get to be on her show, you know how many people talk about her show? She’s so funny too. Did you know she even got married recently?” Karin said. 

Naruto’s eyes widened, “really?! To who?” 

“Some really pretty girl named Sakura, no one really knows much about her except that she also goes by Dr. Haruno,” 

Naruto gaped. At least now he knew what Shikamaru meant when he said that she’s a lot happier now. 

“Is something wrong with that?” Karin asked. Naruto shook his head,

“Not at all, it was just unexpected, that’s so cool, believe it!” 

“Aren’t you gay too Naruto?” Juugo asked, “unless Sai is a girl’s name,” Naruto felt that shiver of disgust again when he heard the name. He didn’t realize his band members caught that detail when he was talking to Shikamaru. 

“Um yeah, sort of, I prefer bisexual really, but I usually lean towards guys for some reason,” Naruto said. He had no problem talking about his sexuality, he had been out for as long as he can remember. What made things easier for him was that he didn’t have the pressure of what his parents would think. 

“Oh? Is there any guy in specific?” Karin asked, with a smirk creeping onto her lips. Naruto’s shoulders tensed up. He couldn’t have been that obvious… right? 

“N-no! I’ve always kinda been like that,” Naruto shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal and not trying to make any crushes obvious. He could already tell that Karin saw right through him, but she wasn’t too vocal about it. The less embarrassment was the better. 

“Yeah right! I bet you have a big FAT crush on Sasuke!” Suigetsu exclaimed, “but that’s too bad because he’s mine~”

All the band members with the exception of Juugo were standing in the living room just to listen to the song. The vocalist smirked as he walked over to Sasuke only to wrap his arms around his neck, but before he could do anything in an attempt to make Naruto jealous, Sasuke immediately pushed him away, and a lot harder than he ever did to Naruto, causing him to stumble and almost fall. Naruto didn’t even feel an ounce of jealousy or embarrassment, instead, he just felt awkward. 

“Clearly…” Juugo said from where he sat, he had unpaused his game to continue playing. 

“Seriously Suigetsu, lay off the harassment much?” Naruto said, as expected he received that look on Suigetsu’s face. 

“At least I’m not a freak! You probably even carved those scars on your face yourself you weirdo!” 

Naruto’s eyes widened as he covered his cheeks with his hands on instinct. This time he didn’t have anything smart to say. Typically when someone would get their appearance made fun of, the natural response would attack using the same tactic of bullying and body shaming, but Naruto couldn’t. He refused to stoop to that level no matter who it was. Whenever it came down to something that can’t be changed in an instant, why say hurtful things? He slid his one hand down a little while the other fell to his side. The room was silent. He looked down and sighed with disappointment. He was used to the bullying, but at this point, he was just tired. 

“Why am I not surprised? Considering that it’s hard for you to be original anyway,” Naruto finally said, causing Suigetsu to gasp, Karin’s mouth gaped and even Juugo paused his game again. 

“If you must know, I didn’t carve anything into my face, you’re a freak for even thinking I would,” and with that Naruto headed out the living room, towards the front door, leaving behind shocked reactions. Once he was outside, he didn’t know where he was going. It didn’t help that the mini-mansion was pretty far from any sign of society either, not only that, the sun had already set and so, Naruto didn’t go far. Instead, he sat on the top stair of the stoop. His knees were close enough to his chest where he laid his head on them. Goosebumps started appearing on his arms, the gust of wind caused a shiver to run down his spine but he was too stubborn to do anything about it. He heard the door open behind him, he didn’t turn his head to see who it was as they sat next to him. 

“Karin insisted that I come out here,” Sasuke said. 

“I’ll be back in eventually, you didn’t have too,” Naruto said, but Sasuke didn’t get up. 

“Hn.” 

Naruto hugged his knees closer to his chest. The moon was beautiful that night and you would need more than two hands to count the stars. Naruto couldn’t appreciate the sky this time though as the insecurities were loud tonight. His head was clouded with memories of the torments and loneliness. He used to cry at times like this, but at this point, he was just tired. 

“When did this whole ship thing happen?” Naruto asked to break not only the silence but to distract himself from his thoughts. 

“At about the same time, we started blowing up. People just saw two good looking band members and began starting stuff. People ship him and Karin too, but that isn’t as popular. He started to get more touchy on stage with either me or Karin, but then more to me. It wasn’t too long ago until he started to actually develop feelings,” Sasuke explained. 

“I’m surprised considering you only express two emotions,” Naruto said, relaxing a bit more as they continued to talk. 

“He built his crush on a fantasy,” Sasuke said. Naruto’s eyes widened in realization as he heard that. He thought over his own secret crush and wondered if that was why he felt the way he felt. The statement itself sounded so obvious too, why else would he have this crush? He doesn’t know much about the guitarist at the end of the day. He’s only known him for a few days. Those few days feel so much longer though. 

“That explains my last relationships honestly. I should probably be more careful,” Naruto said. 

“Good to hear that you’re finally developing common sense,” 

Naruto narrowed his eyes at the other before reaching his elbow over and nudged him. 

“Whatever,” he grumbled into his knees. He glanced back at Sasuke who was looking out into the front yard that was deeply lit by yard lights that lined the driveway. His side profile was just as handsome as looking at him straight on. His defined jawline made Naruto want to trace it with his fingers. His hair reminded the blonde of the night sky above them, dark, almost black, and he had the urge to reach out and touch it, but he knew he couldn’t. He observed how relaxed the other seemed with how his shoulders weren’t as tense as he was. He mimicked this as he released his knees from his chest and allowed his legs to stretch out onto the stairs below him. He leaned back onto his hands and tried to see what Sasuke was looking at. 

“What made you want to join this band anyway?” Naruto asked. 

“You ask too many questions,” 

“Then you say something for once if you don’t want me asking questions!” 

Sasuke broke his gaze with whatever was in front of him only to meet Naruto’s. He could see that his blue eyes were clinging onto sanity. He knew exactly why the songwriter kept pushing these questions. He was drawn to these eyes, there was something so familiar about them.

“You’re very predictable,” Sasuke commented. Naruto’s face fell with a sigh. 

“Says you, teme,” 

Sasuke stood up and patted himself down, “let’s go back,” He said. Naruto only gave him a confused look, quickly taking back his words mentally. 

“You could stay out here, it’s fine with me,” Sasuke said as he started to head inside causing Naruto to stand up quickly and started following his lead. They bypassed Juugo playing his game in the living room and Suigetsu and Karin must have gone somewhere else as they were nowhere to be seen. Sasuke leads him upstairs and to his room. He opened the door and turned on the light and instructed Naruto to close the door behind him as he grabbed his guitar from its stand and sat on the bed. 

“We’re writing a song right now,” Sasuke stated. Naruto’s eyes widened in shock, but he didn’t want to question it in case Sasuke changed his mind. Sasuke grabbed a notebook he kept on his nightstand and tossed it on the bed space in front of him where Naruto was going to sit. Naruto took the notebook as Sasuke handed him a pen too before he sat in front of him. He folded his legs pretzel style, placing the notebook on his lap. 

“I started a song,” Naruto said, “I only have the first line though,” Naruto said. 

“Then make something up,” Sasuke said as he started testing out some chords on his guitar. Naruto was listening while he rewrote the lyrics he’s had on his mind. He read over his lyrics and shook his head and told Sasuke to start off differently until Naruto was satisfied with the chords being played. 

_ [1]You've got me shaking from the way you're talking _

_ My heart is breaking but there's no use crying _

_ What a cyanide surprise you have left for my eyes _

_ If I had common sense I'd cut myself or curl up and die  _

Naruto paused trying to come up with something else to add as Sasuke kept playing. Naruto kept referencing back to how he felt negotiating with Orochimaru. He couldn’t get over how awful that man was and how he was foolish enough to get tied up with him, but he also wanted to live his dream at the same time. Orochimaru was a sadist, he even threatened Naruto to end his career before it even started by making it nearly impossible to make a name in the music industry. Chills were sent down his spine as he kept coming up with lyrics on the spot. 

_ [1]Sticks and stones could break my bones _

_ But anything you say will only fuel my lungs  _

Naruto wrote down the lyrics as he sang. The way he envisioned the song was changing and it was even fun to sing. He reminded himself that despite the awful meeting with that man, he still made it out of there in one piece and a lot of his negotiations actually worked. When he walked out of that office, he remembered not feeling so afraid anymore because he had just gotten over one of the biggest obstacles in his life, and here he is, still apart of the band. He also thought about Suigetsu and how awful he’s been to him since the second they interacted. He couldn’t help but let out a laugh as he continued to write down the lyrics and sang them aloud to make sure they sounded right. He felt like he was mocking Orochimaru and Suigetsu through this song and he liked it a lot. He started to giggle again causing Sasuke to stop and look up at the blonde. 

“Are you drunk?” Sasuke asked. 

“I just might be,” He said, laughing some more as he fell back onto the bed. “I really don’t like Orochimaru or Suigetsu, to be honest,” Naruto leaned back on his arms. “However, I do find you really attractive,” Naruto said, he really was spilling his guts out now and he wasn’t even drunk. Naruto isn't always impulsive, but he knew his logic was always skewed. He didn’t want anyone to know about his crush and yet here he is, practically confessing. He could only guess that the difference was that he had control over his decisions. 

“You’re being stupid,” Sasuke said. He eyed the blonde carefully, he didn’t know how to feel about that look in his eye either. He knew the blonde could see right through him all this time and maybe that’s why they ended up hanging out with each other more than the other band members. It like he didn’t have to hide, but his wall was still up to protect himself and yet every now and then he felt his wall crumbling. 

“Just shut up and lay with me,” Naruto said. Sasuke watched the other for a second before putting his guitar to the side and then laying himself down next to the blonde.

“What’s it like being a hot mysterious guitarist where everyone wants to fuck you?” 

“Annoying,” Sasuke responded. Naruto turned on his side, propping his head up with his hand to get a better look at the other. 

“Is it annoying because people see you as an object rather than a person with feelings?” 

Sasuke shifted his gaze to the blonde, realizing how close he was. He didn’t respond this time, but he also didn’t have too. He looked back up to the ceiling. 

“Gosh, and I bet being shipped with Suigetsu must be the worst. I was looking more into the Taka fandom and that’s when I learned that people write fanfiction on you guys. There’s even a ship name, but I don’t remember what it was,” Naruto was observing the other who had become really quiet all of a sudden. Not even a grunt.

“Hey it’s late, have you ever swam in the pool? I’ve been meaning too, but it’s been busy,” Naruto said, poking at Sasuke’s shoulder. 

“I’m not swimming with you, dobe,” He said. Swimming was the last thing Sasuke wanted. Doing anything outside was the last on his agenda, but if that was the case, how did he find himself in his swim trunks with Naruto as they quietly snuck into the backyard so none of the other band members would find them like this. Oh yeah, that’s right, Naruto used that blackmailing trick again. Sasuke knew Naruto wouldn’t actually do that though, it’s been a few days and even in that short time period, Sasuke was able to figure out the type of person Naruto was. Then why would he go along with this act? He could always say no and know that Naruto wouldn’t betray him like that. He didn’t know the answer to that either. 

It was a little cool out which meant the water was just as cold. Naruto had on orange and white swim trunks and Sasuke had some black ones. The pool was big and the moonlight reflected off the water so nicely. The pool lights illuminated the water as well. Going over to the shallow end, Sasuke slowly stepped in, wincing at the low temperature of the water. He suddenly regretted his decisions as he started deeper into the water and it got up to his thigh because after that there was a sudden drop where the water gets deeper. He was so preoccupied with the cold, he didn’t notice Naruto running up to the pool and jumping right into the deep end. Sasuke didn’t appreciate the cold splash. Naruto resurfaced from the water and started shivering immediately. 

“I didn’t expect it to be this cold,” Naruto hugged himself in the water as if it would do anything. 

“I’m leaving, this was stupid,” Sasuke said, but as he was about to turn around, Naruto had swam over and grabbed his leg to stop him from leaving and reaching out to grab his wrist and pulled him deeper in the water. 

“Come on, it’s not so bad after you start swimming a little bit!” Naruto said. Sasuke let out a sigh as he allowed himself to be dragged to the deep end. He started shivering once the water hit his waist. 

“Screw it,” he said and dove into the water so he could get it over with. He resurfaced still feeling cold but the shock was finally gone. Naruto swam over to him, clapping his hands to congratulate the other. 

“You’re so brave, teme, I’m proud of you,” Naruto said. Sasuke’s damp hair reached his shoulders just slightly. 

“So what now, dobe?” 

“It’s called you swim, teme,” Naruto said as he swam around the other. Sasuke waited for when Naruto was in front of him again only to splash him in the face which made Naruto splashback. “Two can play at that game!” He yelled and started splashing Sasuke some more, but the loud splashing was starting to make a lot of noise so Sasuke braced himself and went through all the splashes in order to grab Naruto’s wrists, unintentionally pulling him closer. 

“Shh! If I say you win, will you stop?” 

Naruto felt the warmth and it wasn’t because he was getting used to the pool’s temperature. Being so close to someone half-naked would make anybody blush, especially someone so attractive. Naruto had stopped splashing, he had always noticed how good-looking Sasuke was at face value, but seeing him up close and vulnerable with his hair wet was a different experience. 

“Staring is rude, didn’t your mother ever taught you that?” Sasuke said as he released his wrists. 

Naruto shook his head, “My parents died when I was a baby” 

Sasuke’s eyes widened, not expecting that kind of response, it was probably the most emotion he’s shown all night. He relaxed his shoulders and even after he had released Naruto’s wrists, they were still close. 

“My parents died too, I was eight,” That’s when it clicked. That’s why Naruto was so drawn to those eyes and the pain that would lay there. He couldn’t help but compare those eyes with his own as if they had something in common and now he knows. 

“I’m sorry to hear about that Sasuke, that must have been hard,” Sasuke didn't say anything.

Naruto reached over and stroked Sasuke’s hair out of his face, getting a better look of his eyes. He recognized that feeling of being alone. At least Naruto didn’t have to experience the death of his parents, he was there, but he was only a baby, however, the loneliness topped any sort of pain. Looking into Sasuke’s dark eyes, he was reminded that they weren’t any different than his own. At that moment, Sasuke would say the same. It was like time had stopped just for them. He could feel the other’s breath. The setting was what he imagined, in the pool and under the moonlight. The guitarist had never been so close to him. Naruto wanted to close the gap between their lips, but the annoying voice in his head kept telling him no.

For once they didn’t feel so alone.

“We should get back…” Naruto said, barely over a whisper, but before Sasuke could say anything, they heard the back door open causing Sasuke to pull away immediately. Sasuke looked over and saw it was Suigetsu, causing him to take a deep breath before ducking into the water and pressing against the wall so he wouldn’t be seen. Naruto was about to do the same but he was seen. 

“Oh it’s you, I thought I heard an animal out here,” Suigetsu said. From where Suigetsu was standing, he couldn’t see the guitarist hiding in the water. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t understand you, I don’t speak bitch,” Naruto retorted. 

Suigetsu rolled his eyes, “Practice starts in an hour by the way, please don’t show up,” he said before turning around and heading back inside. Naruto was seeing bubbles surface from where Sasuke was hiding, the second he saw that the coast was clear, he tapped on Sasuke’s shoulder. The guitarist resurfaced the water, taking a gasp of air, letting out some coughs and even muttering out, “fuck,” followed by panting. 

“That was close,” Naruto said with an awkward laugh. 

“Dobe,” Sasuke said before heading out of the pool. 

-x- 

When Naruto got back into his room, he was frantic. He leaned back against the door, reliving what had just happened in his head. He was so close to him. Dangerously close. He really could have kissed him at that moment, but he was the one who defused the situation, to begin with. Naruto let out a groan as he slid down the door and onto the floor. _ I could have kissed him. _ He thought, but deep down he knew he couldn’t. Not yet at least. He also knew if anybody, especially  _ him _ , saw them, it would have caused trouble. At least he hoped that nobody saw them. They didn’t do anything, but they were standing too close to be considered casual. His heart was still pounding in his chest, he took a few moments to ground himself before making his way to the bathroom to shower off the smell of chlorine. 

Naruto was late to rehearsal, he didn’t feel too bad considering everyone was late to rehearsal, their own manager being the latest. It gave them time to set up. Suigetsu wouldn’t look towards the blonde and as usual, he tried to talk to Sasuke who looked like he wasn’t even listening. The atmosphere changed in the studio and it was hard to deny. Sasuke looked over to see that Naruto joined them for practice. Their eyes met and Naruto’s face immediately turned a shade of light pink before he looked away. Sasuke walked around the vocalist who was in midconversation with him, only to grab one of the extra mics that were off to the side and pulled it forward to set it down near the other mic. 

“Teme,” Naruto grumbled, “Thanks,” he said, trying to get a hold of his facial expressions.

“You need to relax, dobe,” Sasuke said. 

“I am relaxed, jerk,” 

Karin witnessed this interaction and raised an eyebrow as she glanced over at Suigetsu who was already getting upset. Soon enough, Kakashi finally entered the studio, pulling out an excuse as to why he was late as usual, but that didn’t change the thick tension that lingered throughout rehearsal.

As far as rehearsal went, it was bearable since Naruto picked up that Suigetsu was practically a different person while he worked. It was as if he had a work persona that took over when it needed too. By the end of the practice, Naruto was told that he was going to have to work on his stage presence which raised the pressure on his shoulders. 

“How do I work on my stage presence when I’ve yet to actually perform in front of this type of audience where stage presence matters!” Naruto exclaimed. 

“Just work on it Naruto, you can figure it out,” Kakashi said into the mic before packing up his things. Naruto let out a groan, knowing he had to do some research over the next couple of days for this performance. 

“How helpful,” Juugo said with a laugh as he made his way past Naruto towards the door. Naruto let out a sigh before following the drummer out. His throat was sore and he felt a wave of tiredness for once indicating that it was time for bed. A certain redhead waited for the blonde and the vocalist to leave, leaving only her and Sasuke. 

“You’re not fooling anybody you know,” Karin suddenly said as Sasuke was putting the guitar away. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” Sasuke said in a bored tone. 

“That’s fine, play dumb, and you might want to be more careful next time though, you’re lucky my room is the one with a good view of the pool,” 

Sasuke froze before narrowing his eyes over at Karin, “Hn. Goodnight, Karin,” He said, the look on his face was more of a warning, but the smug smirk on hers was unfazed as he made his way out of the studio. 

Over the next two days, Naruto had been watching videos of live performances of different bands in order to take notes on their stage performances. In rehearsals, his so-called stage presence was still not up to par, but he figured it was because he wasn’t in front of a crowd. Naruto and Sasuke had rarely seen each other besides during practice due to Naruto’s determination and Sasuke being cooped up in his room as usual. Even dinner was rocky because, by the time Naruto finished dinner, Sasuke would come in for dinner or vice versa, even when it came to their other meals. They hadn’t had the chance to continue their songwriting session due to how busy they both had gotten, but they knew they would probably continue after the interview anyway. 

The morning of the interview, Naruto was surprised that his nerves weren’t as bad as he thought they would be. 

“You didn’t sleep did you,” Sasuke said when he saw the blonde with his head resting on the cold surface of the counter with a plate of breakfast near his head. Naruto’s head slowly lifted to see the other through half-lidded eyes. 

“You’re an idiot,” Sasuke said. 

“For once, I’m going to agree with you on that, I am insanely sleepy,” He said as rested his head back down on the counter, “I should have chugged my sleep medicine but, nope, didn’t do that,” 

Sasuke shook his head as he made his way over to the coffee machine. 

“No! I don’t like coffee!” Naruto said. 

“I wasn’t going to make you any,” Sasuke said, “there's energy drinks in the fridge,” 

“I know, but Kakashi said I’m not allowed to have any caffeine or bubbly drinks or else it’ll affect my voice,” Naruto said. 

“Sounds like a personal problem,” Sasuke said as he placed a cup underneath the little spout and watched the coffee pour into the cup.

“You’re a personal problem,” Naruto grumbled as he went to drink his water he’s had sitting there. That was another thing, Kakashi specifically informed him to drink only water. Sasuke sat beside him with a cup of coffee at hand. 

“Why do you have to take sleep medicine?” Sasuke asked. 

“So I can sleep, teme, my brain isn’t exactly wired to where it can knock out when I want too, not only that, it keeps me asleep, but I always feel gross when I wake up so I usually don’t like taking it” 

“Hn.” Sasuke took a sip of his coffee. Naruto couldn’t help but grimace when he realized that Sasuke drank his coffee black. 

”You are what you drink, bitter,” Naruto said. 

“You know it’s still early, you can still squeeze in a good three-hour nap before you we get going,” Sasuke said. 

“Doesn’t necessarily work like that,” 

“You seemed to fall asleep just fine the other day,” Sasuke said, referring to when Naruto came into his room, insisting that he wanted to listen to him play, but ended up falling asleep. 

“But that was different,” 

Sasuke rolled his eyes before taking another sip of coffee, that’s when the idea struck the blonde, the look on his face indicated an idea and Sasuke had already seen this coming the second he mentioned it. 

“I’m not going to lull you to sleep with my playing,” Sasuke said before the blonde could say anything. 

“Okay but here’s why you should, I’d be less tired for the performance and I won’t bother you for the rest of the day,” Naruto said. 

“Why don’t I believe the second part?” Sasuke said. Naruto frowned before sticking his pinky out towards the other, “I’ll promise it to you,” 

“You’re joking,” Sasuke said with a scuff. 

“I’m not. I take these very seriously, believe it!” The determined blonde looked straight at the other, not breaking eye contact. Sasuke rolled his eyes and said, “fine,” but didn’t move his hands from where they were. 

“But Sasuke you have to pinky promise or it won’t work,” Naruto said with puppy dog eyes. 

“Do you want me to do this or not?” Sasuke asked. Naruto sighed in defeat as his gesture was left hanging, but the guitarist still agreed to do it without it.  _ And he calls me an idiot, _ Naruto thought. He finished his breakfast before putting his dish away, he gave it a minute to make sure he didn’t hear anybody making their way towards the kitchen before going over to Sasuke from behind. Naruto placed his hands slightly hovering over Sasuke’s waste, but just enough for him to feel the contact, as he leaned in and said, “thank you,” close to Sasuke’s ear. Sasuke head shot up, a rosy pink dusted over his cheeks and before he could react, Naruto was already on his way out of the kitchen and headed in the direction of Sasuke’s room. 

Naruto walked into Sasuke’s room, closing the door slightly behind him before he went over to the bed. He noticed that Sasuke hadn’t made his bed yet, so he didn’t feel guilty getting under the covers. He snuggled his face into the pillows, they smelled like him. A part of him felt like he could possibly fall asleep no problem like this. 

“Seriously?” Sasuke said when he saw the other snuggled into his bed. He closed the door behind him and even locked it in case someone decided to barge in since that’s been the trend lately. 

“Do you mind?” Naruto asked. 

“Does it matter?” Sasuke said back as he went over to grab his acoustic guitar this time since he didn’t feel like setting up the amp. He sat on his bed with his back against the headboard and his legs folded in a pretzel style. He adjusted his guitar and gave it a good strum to make sure it was in tune before he started playing without even asking Naruto for any song requests. The only problem that occurred this time was that now Naruto was trying to figure out what was being played. It sounded so familiar. It was a different genre than what Naruto is used to hearing from Sasuke. It was softer and more emotionally. 

“ _ A Day to Remember _ ,” Naruto said. Sasuke nodded as he kept playing. Naruto knew the title of the song was at the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t place it. 

“Wait, what song?” Naruto asked. 

“Go to sleep, dobe,” Sasuke said. Naruto sat up as if a different position would help him remember, but then it clicked, _ If it Means a Lot To You _ , he thought. He couldn’t help but smile when he realized that Sasuke did have a softer side to him. Watching him play made his heart skip a beat. He laid back down, letting the music lull him to sleep. That’s when he realized that Sasuke didn’t have to show emotion because he was already an open book through his music. 

An alarm went off causing Naruto to jolt up in surprise. He was sitting up, panting slightly as he looked around trying to locate where the sound was coming from. Instead, he heard a groan, looking over he noticed Sasuke reaching out to his phone on the nightstand to turn off the alarm. 

“Didn’t you drink coffee?” Naruto asked. 

“It was decaf,” Sasuke said as he tried rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. After Naruto had fallen asleep, Sasuke decided to catch up on some reading on an ebook he had on his phone, but two pages in he found himself falling asleep and he figured if he was going to sleep, it would be smart to set an alarm. 

“You drank black decaf coffee? You drink black coffee… for fun?” Naruto grimaced at the thought. Sasuke cracked his eyes open only to give him the side-eye. 

“You should get ready for this interview,” Sasuke said as he sat up. He winced slightly when he realized he must’ve slept on his neck incorrectly when it hurt to move it. 

“Here,” Naruto said as he shifted closer and placed his hands on his shoulders, rubbing his thumbs into the back of Sasuke's neck. 

Sasuke let out another groan, “a little lower,” he said. Naruto quickly realized the mistake he had done. The way he reciprocating to his massage made him feel a certain type of way. Naruto played it cool as he lowered his thumbs and pressed harder, but that only made another sound come out of Sasuke’s mouth. Naruto tensed up and quickly pulled his hands away. 

“I-I should get ready,” he said before getting off the bed and running out of the room, leaving behind a confused guitarist. Naruto had never jumped into a cold shower so fast.

-x- 

The Ino Show, one of the most popular talk shows on tv. Everyone wanted to have a chance to be on that show, but it didn’t matter how popular and famous a person was, Ino always had a say on who was allowed to be on her show. Truthfully it was a surprise to the band that they even had this opportunity in the first place with the exception of Naruto. What his band members didn’t know, was Naruto’s connection with the talk show host.

When the band arrived backstage of the set, they were amazed by how big the building itself was. It was practically a remodeled warehouse with different sections. Naruto was told that there was a live studio audience and the thought made his palms sweaty. They were all waiting in a waiting room that looked no different than a standard living room. They were all sitting on the couches, Naruto sitting the farthest away from Sasuke. After this morning he realized it was getting harder to contain his emotions. The door to the waiting room opened and when everyone realized it was the talk show host, they all stood up. 

“Where is he?!” Ino suddenly asked as she stepped in, she looked around and squealed when she saw a certain blonde and immediately ran over to him and hugged him, “oh my gosh Naruto! It’s been so long! Once I heard you were apart of Taka, I had to get you on my show!” 

Naruto laughed as he hugged back, “it’s good to see you too, Ino,” 

Everyone’s jaw dropped. 

“How many people does this kid know?” Juugo asked. 

“Sorry, about that, I’m so rude,” Ino said as she pulled away from the blonde and proceeded to greet everybody properly. 

“I’m glad you all made it on time, I very much appreciate that. I hope you’ve been treating Naruto here nicely,”

“That’s a way of putting it,” Naruto said, recollecting all the times he had to deal with a certain vocalist. The stage manager interrupted to let Ino know that she was on in five minutes meaning that it was her time to go. 

“I gotta go, can’t wait to see you all soon!” Ino said before hurrying off. 

“How do you know her?!” Karin finally asked. 

“Hm? Oh um, a friend from high school,” Naruto responded. Seeing his old friend calmed him down tremendously. A familiar face in a world full of strangers was a breath of fresh air. Karin must have been a big fan because it wasn’t too long until she began asking questions about the co-host, but Naruto knew it wasn’t his business to tell and so he kept the answers as minimal as he could. He glanced over at Sasuke who looked back causing them to make eye contact, Naruto broke away quickly and blushed slightly. He had to contain his emotions because he knew any questions in regards to this “relationship” would cause him to blush and stutter which would only make him seem less credible in the situation. Soon enough, the band gathered off stage where they waited for their queue. 

”They’re an up and coming band that has taken over the radio, let me introduce to you, Taka!” Ino said and that’s when the music began as the five of them started walking out onto the stage where all the seating was. It was a three-seater couch and two stools behind the couch and a single lounge chair to match that was separated by a coffee table in the middle. Before they had gone out they were told an order to sit in, Karin sat closest to the host, next to her was Sasuke, Suigetsu and Naruto and Juugo were sitting on the stools behind. The live audience was bigger than Naruto had expected, his palms were feeling moist again. He took a deep breath and turned to look at Ino. 

“Taka! for anybody who doesn’t know, we have Suigetsu on vocals, Sasuke on guitar, Karin on bass guitar, Juugo on drums, and finally Naruto, the newest member of the band. Thank you for coming, I’m so happy you’re here, I’ve been meaning to meet the band that has been hitting the top charts lately, how does it feel?”

“It feels amazing, we’re so happy that so many people like our music,” Karin said. 

“Now initially there were only four of you, but now there’s a new member, some of you, if now all of you may recognize him from that viral video that took over the internet, for those who don’t know it’s this video right here,” Ino said as the screen behind them showed the video Karin had posted. The audience laughed when the video ended with Karin shaking her head to the camera. 

“Now please, fill us in on all of this,” Ino said. 

“Oh man, do you want to start Naruto?” Karin asked looking over her shoulder. 

Naruto chuckled as he rubbed his neck, “yeah sure, so hi everybody, I’m the songwriter of the group and not Sasuke’s wife, it was funny because Karin had asked Sasuke and I if she could post the video and like idiots we just went along with it not knowing how viral the video would get,” Naruto said which made the audience laugh again. 

“Yes because I’m sure no one even knew you even existed before that,” Ino said. 

“God, are you kidding? I’ve never seen my follower count just skyrocket like that before,” there was more laughter from the audience. 

“Now you said you aren’t Sasuke’s wife, so what are you to him if you don’t mind me asking?” Ino asked. 

“I can tell you that we aren’t enemies,” Naruto said which erupted some “Ooo”s from the audience. 

“What is that supposed to mean~,” Ino asked.

“It means we get along, Naruto has been a very good addition to the group,” Sasuke said. 

“So what you’re saying is you’re just friends?” Ino asked.  _ Don’t give them straight answers _ , Naruto thought.

“What we’re saying is that I’m not Sasuke’s wife, quite frankly I’d be a horrible wife considering that I am indeed a man,” Naruto said. 

“So a husband then?” Ino retorted. Naruto’s cheeks felt warm again. 

“Husband? Sasuke would have to take me out to dinner first,” Naruto said causing the audience to laugh. 

“Is there any place you’d want to eat?” Sasuke suddenly asked. Ino covered her mouth with her hands to cover her giggle. 

“Oh u-um,”  _ fuck _ , “we’ll talk later,” he said. 

“Oh my, you saw it here first, folks,” Ino said, “now that you have a new songwriter I understand that you have a new song coming out,” 

“We do and this is the first song Naruto has written for us and it’s really good and I hope that everyone likes it, the direction he’s putting us in really enhances the style we already have,” Juugo said, “in fact, Naruto is even going to perform with us,” 

“So you’re a vocalist as well?” Ino asked. 

“Depends on the mood of the song I’m writing really, this song in particular just happens to be a duet,” Naruto said. 

“That’s amazing, how does that make you feel Suigetsu? Do you feel intimidated by his vocals at all?” Ino asked. 

“Absolutely not, we work as a team here and if anything our voices compliment each other,” Suigetsu said. Naruto was actually surprised by the response, but he was reminded that they were technically working which meant this was probably his work persona talking. 

“And I’m sure the audience is dying to hear what all of this sounds like, when we get back from this break, Taka will be performing their new song,  _ King For a Day _ ,” she finally said as they went on commercial break. During the break, the band headed to the performing stage where everything was set up. The band has been practicing a lot in the past few days for this and Naruto had been looking into stage presence and how to make his better. He felt slightly nervous but once he took his mind off of the audience and focused on what he is going to perform, it made him mentally prepared. The commercial break felt like a blink of an eye as he saw the stage directors counting down that was about to start. They were back on tv and once given the signal, Sasuke started it off. 

It was just like they practiced. Naruto was told that the song would go live on all major music streaming sites once the interview started. Thinking about the number of people this song is currently being exposed too was a lot to handle, but now that Naruto was performing his heart to the audience, he forgot all of that was a thing.

Their performance ended and what Naruto didn’t expect was loud applause from the audience. It was as if the pressure on his chest had never existed as he went over this bump in the road. He felt like he could take on anything. 

-x-

From a high-end apartment on the upper-eastside of Suna was a black-haired, pale-skinned celebrity lying on his couch with his Persian cat watching the Ino Show. His eyes widened when he saw a familiar face on the tv screen, a face he hadn’t seen in years. A blonde-haired boy with the brightest blue eyes that made him nostalgic. He could never forget those eyes. When he first saw him trending he thought that the blonde had finally whored himself to meet people, but after the performance, he was proven wrong. A smirk found itself on those lips as an idea crawled its way to his mind. He pulled out his phone and called his manager, 

“Whoever you hired to be in the main part of my music video, I want you to fire him,” he said. 

“W-what?! But it took us forever for you to finally decide on someone!”

“And I’ve finally decided. I want Naruto Uzumaki instead,” he said. 

“You mean that guy who went viral? Well okay, I’ll see what I can do,” 

“No, you will make it happen. I need him in my video, whatever it takes, negotiate, I don’t care how much money you spend,” 

”Understood. I will do everything I can, Sai,” the manager said, and with that, the man hung up. 


	7. Old Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Chapter 7 done! What do you think of Sai?  
Also, I just realized I've been spelling Juugo's name wrong this whole time. I swear by the life of me that I thought it was spelled with two U's and not one. Mandella effect!!! 
> 
> Also, here's a link to the Spotify playlist I made that mentions all the songs that had been brought up so far, 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5iGIJw5drjyV4zQlR0RSz0?si=nlUYlG0qSW62cu82VjRyNw 
> 
> Disclaimers:  
[1] the lyrics are from the song, Get Away With Murder by Jeffree Star.

“That was amazing!” Naruto was able to exclaim once they got back to the waiting room after they performed. He kept replaying the performance in his head, when they were on stage it was as if any tension between the members ceased and instead all emotion was taken out on their talents, even Kakashi could see that. Juugo gave Naruto a pat on the back,

“That must have been our best performance, thanks to you,” the drummer praised as he went over to one of the couches to take a load off.

“Oh my god!” Karin shouted, everyone, turned to her and saw that she was looking on her phone, “Guys, there's already thousands of downloads on our song,” She said when she looked on her music streaming app. 

“What?!” Naruto asked as he went over to Karin to look over her shoulder and saw how the numbers of downloads and listens were steadily climbing at a good rate. His eyes widened, he looked up and his eyes met with Sasuke’s who gave him a smirk. 

“Everyone,” Kakashi said as he walked into the room, “Ino wants to meet with you after the show is over so we’re going to be here a little longer. Also, great work everyone, you all did a great job, I should get a word from the label by the end of the day,” 

Soon enough Ino came into the waiting room squealing in happiness, “That was amazing!” she exclaimed, “and you!” she says as she pointed at Naruto, “You need to fill me in on everything, Mr. I’m-going-to-disappear-off-the-face-of-the-planet!”

“You’re the one who got famous,” Naruto retorted, “and a wife,”

Ino giggled, “Oh yeah,” she says, “you gotta meet her sometime, she’s curious on who this Naruto Uzumaki, the high school class clown, is,” 

“For some reason, I am not surprised,” Karin said, trying to keep her cool after Ino mentioned meeting her wife. 

“Oh and you all can meet her, any friend of Naruto is a friend of mine,” Ino said. 

“Oh, I am NOT his friend!” Suigetsu stated. 

“I am! I am Naruto’s friend!” Karin shouted as she wrapped an arm around the blond’s shoulders since he happened to be sitting next to her. Naruto couldn’t help but laugh at his band member’s excitement, not minding that the extra affection was because they were in front of her idol. He couldn’t blame her. 

“Great! So it’s a plan. My people will contact your people to arrange something because I know your schedule is just as busy as mine, speaking of which, I have a meeting with my design team for some new merch coming out,” She said with a wink, “Bye guys~” and with that, she left. 

Karin couldn’t help but let her jaw drop before looking at Naruto, “I’m going to need a copy of your yearbook to see who else you know,” Karin demanded. 

“Hehe, unfortunately, I left it back in Konoha, I don’t usually carry my yearbook everywhere I go,” Naruto said. 

“Leave him alone Karin, I’m sure more his old friends will start revealing themselves sooner or later once they realize he’s in the spotlight now,” Juugo said, arms folded against his chest. Juugo wasn’t lying either. Ever since Naruto started blowing up, all sorts of people he used to know started contacting him out of nowhere. A select few were messages congratulating him, but even more, were people trying to get him to do them favors. At first, he thought those types of messages were genuine, but the deeper the conversation went, they ended up asking for a shoutout of some sort. It was to the point where he felt like if he was going to start promoting people, he might as well start charging, but he wasn’t the type to actually go through with it. 

“Well, speaking of schedules, we have to get going, we have to start talking about EPs and albums, on the ride back, you guys better start brainstorming,” Kakashi said. 

They all got into the band van that they have been riding around in. It had just enough space for all of them, but Suigetsu seemed bitter when he realized he couldn't layout in the back anymore. Juugo would usually take shotgun while Karin and Suigetsu sat in the back and Naruto and Sasuke sat in the middle row. 

“Do you have any ideas, Naruto?” Karin asked. 

“I do, a few of them actually, Sasuke and I already started writing the second song,” Naruto said. 

“Oh wow, that was fast, when did you two find time to do that?” Karin asked.

“Can I interrupt whatever the hell is happening between you two,” Suigetsu butted in. 

“You really should keep the jealousy to yourself, dude, it’s awkward for all of us,” Juugo Intervened, “and so what if they do end up boning, Suigetsu, you’re acting like you can’t get anybody else,” 

Naruto cringed at the sentence, “why do you have to say it like that?” he asked. 

“Kakashi, please put on the child locks before I do something stupid for once,” Sasuke said.

“Now now, no one is jumping out of this car, especially you Sasuke,” Kakashi said. 

“Okay, but I don’t like anybody else!” Suigetsu said. 

“We know,” Karin said, “anyway, Naruto, your ideas?” 

“Right, well, I want to aim towards the most misunderstood group of people, I want to be able to connect with them with my music, to remind them that they aren’t alone,” Naruto said. 

“Who’s the most misunderstood group of people?” Karin asked.

“Teenagers,” Sasuke said blatantly, “and it isn’t a bad idea either,” 

Once they got back to the house, they met in the living room where they would discuss further. Naturally, Suigetsu didn’t have any ideas. Karin was already sketching out design ideas for the cover art. Juugo was drinking. In the middle of the meeting, Kakashi’s phone started ringing, 

“Oh sorry guys, I thought I left it on silent,” Kakashi said as he let it go to voicemail. Not too long afterward it started ringing again. 

“Maybe it’s important Kakashi,” Naruto said. Kakashi let out a sigh before taking the phone call in the next room. Naruto looked over Karin’s shoulder to peek at her work, 

“Wow, Karin! That looks really good!” Naruto said. 

“Oh it’s just a rough sketch Naruto, you don’t have to pretend,” Karin said. 

“But I’m not, that looks great already, the fact that you were able to come up with something so fast and translate it to paper in a drawing is amazing,” Naruto praised. Karin couldn’t help but blush as she brought the sketch pad closer to her face to hide it. 

“Oh stop, but also don’t, I enjoy the compliments,” Karin said as she kept sketching. 

Kakashi came back into the living room and his eyes immediately landed on Naruto. 

“You have a gig,” Kakashi said. 

“Excuse me?” Naruto asked. 

“Yeah, I’m with him for once, what the hell are you talking about?” Suigetsu said, sitting at the edge of his seat in disbelief. 

“They went as far as contacting the label about negotiations Naruto, and since your current contact that you agreed too mentions to do whatever gigs the label wants you to do, you have to go through with them,” Kakashi said. 

Naruto closed his eyes for a second as he shook his head to clear his mind as he was being fed so much information all of a sudden, “Okay, but what is the gig?” 

“You’re gonna be in a music video, have you ever heard of the singer and artist, Sai?” Kakashi said. That’s when Naruto’s face dropped. 

“Wait, don’t tell me, Naruto is this the guy you mentioned before?” Karin asked. 

Naruto let out a groan as he hid his face in his hands. Why he didn’t see this coming was beyond him. He completely forgot that Sai has been making a name for himself. He even forgot that he got big too, Naruto was too busy trying to forget about him, he didn’t realize this would be a possibility. 

“Yeah that’s him, I completely forgot he’s famous now,” He said.

“How the hell do you forget?!” Karin asked. 

“Tch. Dobe,” Sasuke said, causing Naruto to shoot a glare at him. 

“Well tell Sai and the label I said no,” Naruto said. 

“I’m afraid I can’t do that Naruto it would be going against your contract,” Kakashi said. Naruto sat back on the couch with an exasperated sigh. 

“Okay, so when is this going to happen?” Naruto asked. 

“They said they were going to start shooting this weekend so you have time to mentally prepare yourself for whatever reasons you have,” Kakashi said. 

Naruto stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets, “I am going to change in my bathing suit, and I’m going to go for a swim, if you don’t hear from me, I’m probably in a better place,” 

“Sit your ass back down Naruto, this meeting isn’t over,” Karin snapped. 

“No no it’s okay Karin, Naruto you can do what you want, except for anything stupid,” Kakashi said. Naruto folded his arms on his chest, 

“I was only kidding,” He grumbled, “but if I may be excused, I need some songs to write,” he said before making his way out of the living room. He left the band members and silence fell upon them. Karin cleared her throat, 

“Well, I say, Sasuke, you seem to be the closest to Naruto, you ask him about Sai,” She said. 

“I don’t care,” Sasuke said. 

Over the next few days, Naruto hadn’t mentioned the mysterious history he had with his ex and why he felt the way he did. He was grateful to Sasuke being the only one who didn’t try asking about his past. In fact, it seemed like he didn’t care to know at all. He was relieved yet slightly disappointed. The disappointment was the part of him who has a crush on the guitarist. He wanted him to be curious about his past, to worry even, but he wasn’t. Instead, they continued writing songs in Sasuke’s room. They had finished the second song and now they were onto the third. As they wrote songs, it felt like their moment at the pool didn’t even happen. Naruto didn’t want to pry himself, but he at least wanted to ask about their moment. They had nearly kissed too, and no matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t deny it. Sasuke probably could deny it though. As Naruto wrote down lyrics, he didn’t realize how hard he was pressing down on the paper until his pencil led snapped. Sasuke lifted his head from his guitar, 

“Are you serious?” Sasuke reached over to his nightstand to check if he had any more writing utensils in there but he didn’t. 

“There should be an extra in a bin under the bed,” he said. Naruto placed the notebook down and slid off the bed like a worm and onto the floor to find this box. Sasuke shook his head by the way the other got off the bed. Naruto found the bin and pulled it out. It was filled with paper, pencils, pens, markers, music sheets and more, and in the most organized way too.

“Neat freak,” Naruto said. He grabbed one of the pens and slid the bin back under. 

“Hn,” Sasuke responded. Naruto eyes the other as he got on the bed before putting the notebook back on his lap and continued writing as Sasuke tested out some chords. They were then interrupted by a knock on the door, 

“It’s Karin,” She said from behind the door. 

“Come in,” Sasuke said and Karin did so. 

“How come you don’t yell at her?!” Naruto asked. 

“She knocked and waited. Something you’re incapable of doing,” Sasuke said. Karin couldn’t help but giggle as she walked over to sit on the bed with them. 

“Nevermind that, boys, I have some ideas for lyrics and I wanted to run them by you Naruto,” She said.

“I’d love to see them are you kidding?!” Naruto said happily. Karin smiled as she unlocked her phone and opened her notes app where she had written them and showed them to the songwriter. 

Naruto was thankful for Karin. He knew his feelings were one-sided, but they were hard to ignore, but Karin being there made the pressure deplete from his shoulders. Naruto read over the lyrics and he was actually surprised. He didn’t expect those types of lyrics from the bass guitarist. He quickly wrote them down and started adding more to it. 

“We can definitely work with this, Karin,” He said as he wrote. It was times like this that reminded Naruto of why he loved songwriting so much. Songs connected people to each other in ways regular words can’t. Even a song with no words at all can connect people just as much. He definitely wanted to give credit to where it’s due too. He took a mental note to make sure to remind the publishers that it hasn’t just been him writing the songs and it was his bandmates too. Despite the heavy contract, he had to admit, he was happy for the fact that he’s able to work with Taka. By now, the members didn’t treat him like he was lesser than him. He felt like an equal as opposed to the newbie that no one likes at first. Granted, Suigetsu still hates him, but his dirty looks turned into straight out ignoring the blonde and truthfully, that was enough for him. He wanted the rest of his life to be like this, writing music with people who get where he’s coming from. He knew moments like this was going to end eventually, but for now, he savored it. 

-x-

This day had come way too fast. When they pulled up to the building where the music video was going to be shot, Naruto couldn’t shake off the unsettling feeling. The feeling got worse as he stepped on the set. Kakashi was there with him, he had asked him to stay and the manager complied. Naruto didn’t want to agree to this, if he could turn back now he would, but because of the contract, he was stuck. They met with the music video director and Naruto was immediately put into makeup and costume. Once in his dressing room, the stylist observed him while his assistants took his measurements.

“Here is the costume Sai has decided on for you to wear,” One of the assistants said as they came in holding a hanger that had leather pants attached to them in their other handheld the biggest platform boots Naruto has ever seen in person. 

“No way! I’m not getting in that, believe it!” Naruto argued.

“Please, just remember that Sai is going to one-up you on the slutty scale,” the stylist said. 

Naruto found himself walking funny due to the costume they had him change into. He had a robe on when he walked back onto the set, the outfit itself was too revealing for him to stand comfortably without it while he waited for Sai. Tight pants that hugged his legs nicely, they were decorated with chains and belts. The platform boots were hard to walk in but as long as he walked slow and steady it was fine. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and the makeup on his face felt heavy since he wasn’t used to it and the eyeliner that was supposed to ‘enunciate the blue’ in his eyes was giving him the urge to rub at them. He kinda felt embarrassed even. So many people are going to see him like this. Now that he thought about it… what if people view him differently. He knew Sai’s style and he knew this music video was going to be anything but innocent. Naruto snapped out of his thoughts when he heard a familiar voice coming onto set. 

“I’m here~ Oh Naruto, long time no see,” Sai said with a fallacious smile Naruto knew all too well, it gave him that familiar feeling of disgust. Sai was wearing a robe as well. 

“Let’s just get this over with,” Naruto said. The set itself wasn’t all that surprising, it was exactly what Naruto predicted, Sai’s fantasy. It was a BDSM style torture chamber with a chair right in the middle. This was only one of the reasons why Naruto couldn’t be with Sai. He respected those who did this type of practice, but it wasn’t for him. Naruto felt like he had already been restrained enough by life, and when it felt like Sai was trying to restrain him metaphorically and physically, that’s when their relationship turned sour. 

“Alright then, I know I want Naruto tied to that chair, and put some fake blood on him too,” Sai said. Naruto let out a sigh as some assistants gestured him to the chair. Naruto undid his robe before slipping it off shyly, feeling a certain someone’s eyes on him. Naruto had always been toned in the right places, he may not work out, but he did do some manual labor jobs before the music store. He used to be a lot more toned before but with the lack of exercise, his muscles had been softening up ever since. He sat down in the chair and allowed the assistants to tie his hands behind him with rope. It took some time but they managed to tie the rope around Naruto’s torso in a bondage-style. It wasn’t the first time he found himself in this type of position. He refused to make eye contact with Sai, knowing that the other was probably thriving off of seeing him like this again. 

“Okay now cover his mouth with tape,” Sai said. Naruto’s mouth was then covered with tape that was safe to put on his face while fake blood was applied to his neck. 

“I think we’re good to start on this scene. Oh and fish cake~ just be yourself, but also struggle a little bit,” He said with that smile on his face. Naruto rolled his eyes in response since his mouth was taped. Sai slid off his robe and it was just as revealing as Naruto’s costume. Instead of platforms, Sai wore high heel leather boots with red lining. He had on tight leather pants too that had a few decorative chains and a tight leather crop top. Tight black gloves were on his hands and other accessories consisted of a few earrings. Once Sai got in position, the director counted down and said, 

“Action!” And with that, the music started. The song itself was fitting. 

_[1] I'm gonna break your heart and get away with murder_

_ You should've known from the start that it wouldn't last forever_

As Sai lip-synced to the song, his hands were all over Naruto. Hands were feeling the ropes tied around his chest. The blonde felt the other’s breath on his neck. He felt a grip in his hair before it was released harshly. Naruto acted as if he was struggling to get out of the situation as Sai wanted. There were some parts when Sai had his foot pressed against the chair in between Naruto’s legs as he leaned forward and mouth the lyrics. 

_[1] There's a mystery inside my head_

_It was you dripping all in red_

_Did I hurt you?_

_Let me make it safe and sound_

Sai wasn’t gentle with his movements. He gave Naruto a teasing lap dance before pulling away and started walking around him slowly. Naruto suddenly felt a lick up his neck, taking him off guard so his eyes went wide. He struggled in the chair more, luckily for him, it wasn’t hard to pretend. Sai got in front of him, lip-syncing the song as he reached over to the back of Naruto’s head and gripped onto his hair and made the blonde face him. Sai leaned in and licked over the tape that was on his mouth slowly during a certain point of the song. 

_[1] I can't control myself_

_I feel like someone else_

_I'm gonna break your heart and get away with murder _

Sai then ripped the tape off of Naruto’s head, causing him to whip his head to the side. Sai grabbed Naruto by his neck, making him look forward only to lean in, pressing his lips against the other. Naruto’s eyes widened again as he felt a tongue slide into his mouth. 

Sai insisted on a make-out scene and there were many takes. That was only the first take. The director claimed that Naruto didn’t seem like he was into it so he needed to do better. He wasn’t wrong, however, he did make himself get more into it for his own sake of wanting to leave. Kissing Sai felt fake. He felt nothing. He probably would have felt more chemistry if he was making out with his own hand. The director also insisted to try different positions for different takes so at one point Naruto’s hands were tied over his head by a rope hanging from the ceiling or he tied to a wall, etc. The songwriter couldn’t help but think that this was Sai’s indirect way of fulfilling a fantasy. 

“So that’s Sai,” Kakashi said. Once they were done with the shooting, Naruto had never changed so fast before dragging Kakashi back to the car. Since the blonde was wearing a hoodie, he used the hood as an advantage to hide most of his face. 

“Unfortunately,” Naruto grumbled. The rest of the car ride was silent and Naruto couldn’t help but feel off. Yeah, Naruto was going to receive a good sum of cash for the gig, but that didn’t justify what he was feeling. They didn’t get back to the house until late. When they got there, Naruto’s first instinct was to go into the kitchen to find something to drink to get the taste out of his mouth. He found a canned drink in the fridge but after a few sips, the taste was still there. At this point, it wasn’t so much of a taste but the distinct feeling of Sai’s tongue in his mouth. Naruto chugged the rest of the can before heading up to his room. He must have brushed his teeth and tongue for a while before he decided that it was no use. He had placed his sleep medicine by the sink, when he picked it up, however, he realized it was empty. 

_Shit. _

Naruto tossed the empty bottle out. He changed into his pajamas and decide to grab his throw blanket from the bed and headed down to the living room where he would watch TV at a low volume until his brain caved in. He wrapped the blanket around him, as he snuggled into the couch. The channel was showing some old rerun he recognized and with that time felt like it moved at its slowest.

-x-

Sasuke Uchiha liked to wake up early in order to work out and to keep his body in check. His day would start at 6:30 in the morning. The house itself has a personal gym, but Sasuke would often go for a run. When he got downstairs, he stopped in his tracks when he noticed someone watching TV in the living room. He figured he would ignore it so he continued to the front door anyway. 

What Sasuke didn’t expect was to find that someone was still watching TV by the time he got back. He checked the time on his phone and saw that it had been almost an hour. He walked over to the couch to see if he could find the remote, but instead, he found the blonde staring at the TV in a daze. Sasuke was standing behind the couch as he reached down and placed a hand on Naruto’s shoulder, causing the blonde to snap out of it. 

“Oh hey, what time is it?” Naruto asked. 

“About 7:30,” 

“Damn,”

“Do you always have trouble sleeping?” Sasuke asked. Naruto nodded as he sat up to stretch his body. For once he finally let out a tired yawn.

“I ran out of medicine so I didn’t have a choice, I thought I would at least fall asleep by four,” Naruto grabbed the remote to turn off the TV. 

“I’ll tell Kakashi to pick up some medicine before he gets here later,” 

“You don’t have too,” Naruto said with another yawn. 

“Just go to bed, dobe,” Sasuke said. The blonde rolled his eyes at the name, but he was too tired to say anything back. Instead, he got up with the blanket around his shoulders and headed back up to his bedroom. Sasuke had gone upstairs too, but to his room where he would shower after he showered and changed, he pulled out his phone to check his email and then social media. Nothing piqued his interest, however, in the sidebar where he saw his friends list, it showed that Naruto was still online. 

_That idiot. _

Sasuke let out a sigh before grabbing his acoustic and found himself out of his bedroom and in front of Naruto’s. When he opened the door, he found the blonde in his bed, scrolling through his phone.

“You’re ridiculous,” Sasuke said. Naruto looked up from his phone, 

“And you have a guitar,” Naruto pointed out. Sasuke closed the door behind him. He pulled a chair from the desk and placed it next to the bed. He sat down, facing away from the blonde with his guitar in his lap and started strumming. Naruto couldn’t help but smile. 

Sasuke didn’t know why, but he felt drawn to the blonde. When he saw him dazed on the couch, he instantly knew that he didn’t get a blink of shut-eye that night. Then he noticed the dark circles. It took a lot not to drag the blonde to bed himself.

Expressing his emotions was already something he had trouble doing, but dealing with them was another story. He first started noticing his feelings when they started writing their second song together. The way they both bounced off each other when producing a song was as if they were both made to do it. Then they were in the pool, the blonde had gotten so close. Vividly he remembered feeling the urge to close the gap between the both of them. If it wasn’t for Suigetsu, he probably would have. He heard the blonde shift as he strummed. He was a different song, one he has been working on himself, that way the blonde wouldn’t try to guess who the song was by. Sasuke looked over and their eyes met. Naruto was on the verge of falling asleep as his eyelids were falling as he watched the other play. 

When it seemed like he had fallen asleep, Sasuke stopped his playing. He looked at the sleeping blonde a little bit longer before getting up and headed to the door. 

“Wait, Sasuke,” Naruto suddenly said sleepily. Sasuke stopped and turned around. Naruto lifted his hand and pats the spot right next to him, “please?” Naruto said. Sasuke pressed his lips together, his heart felt like it was pounding louder against his chest. 

“You’re unbelievable,” Sasuke grumbled as he walked back over to the bed and placed his guitar against the nightstand, “move over, you’re taking up the whole bed, dobe,” 

Naruto shifted, but not by much. Sasuke lifted the covers and laid on his back. He pulled the covers to his chest and once he was settled, Naruto turned on his side, shifting a little bit closer where his forehead was touching Sasuke’s shoulder. Sasuke bit his bottom lip as he felt his heart race against his chest. He felt like he was being teased. He wanted to wrap his arms around the songwriter and pull him closer. He could feel the other relax against him. Sasuke peaked down at him, it was clear that he was finally asleep. 

-x-

Naruto gained enough consciousness to reach his arms out in order to pull Sasuke in his arms, but instead, his arms just fell on the empty space beside him. For a second he thought that Sasuke finally remembered the moment they shared in the pool. He would have asked about it before he fell asleep, but he was too tired. He got up and tried to feel around for his phone but he couldn’t seem to find it until he spotted it on the nightstand. He checked his phone and it was almost three in the afternoon. His eyes widened at this, he hadn’t realized how long he slept for. He heard a sudden grumble coming from his stomach. For a second he forgot about how Sai had kissed him, multiple times, but the memory crawling back into his headspace again. He pretended that he didn’t have so much on his mind as he got up to head down to the kitchen for some breakfast, a really late one. 

After he ate, his plan was to go back to his room, but instead, the sound of a bass guitar was being heard from the direction of Karin’s room, so of course, it was her turn to be bothered. Naruto followed the sound of her guitar and eventually found her room. He knew she wouldn’t be able to hear his knocking so he attempted to open the door, but it was locked. Karin must have heard the doorknob wiggle because it wasn’t too long after until she opened the door, 

“Oh it’s you, I thought it was Suigetsu for a second, I started locking the door after he kept barging in too many times because he wanted attention,” She said, “but come in,” she said as she moved to the side. Naruto couldn’t help but fake laugh at what she said, acting like it didn’t relate to him at all, but with a different band member. 

Naruto hadn’t seen Karin’s room, the walls were purple and her bed matched with purple and white bedsheets. It was big like Sasuke except there was a big window that had a beautiful view, especially of the pool behind the house. Naruto felt his cheeks warmed up at the thought of Karin possibly seeing what had happened the other day. 

“I heard you playing, I wanted to listen to you play,” Naruto said. 

“I figured,” Karin had closed her door as she went back over to the big fancy lounge chair by the window where she had been playing. 

“You can pull up a bean bag chair,” she says, referring to the ones on the other side of her room. Naruto did as such. There was a special curtain in front of the window that Karin had drawn in order for the sun to be less harsh as it shone through the window. 

“You don’t know how to play any instruments right?” Karin asked. Naruto shook his head, 

“No, not really. I’ve been meaning to ask Sasuke to teach me just so it could be easier when we write songs,” 

“You and Sasuke have gotten really close,” Karin pointed out. Naruto tensed up, 

“What makes you say that?” He said, trying to cover his tracks. 

“I saw him leave your bedroom earlier, that’s a start, Sasuke hardly goes into any of our rooms,” Karin said as she continued to strum on her bass. Naruto’s lips were pressed together, he wanted to ask so bad, what was the harm in asking? Would she tell Suigetsu? 

“D-do you think Sasuke likes me?” Naruto asked suddenly, his hands immediately covering his mouth as if he was trying to take back the question. Karin stopped playing and looked up at Naruto. 

“Sasuke hasn’t shown interest in anyone for as long as I met him,” Karin said, causing Naruto’s face to drop, “until now,” she finally added. 

“Who is it?” Naruto asked. Karin facepalmed, she adjusted her glasses, 

“You, you idiot,” she said. 

“Me? How do you know?” 

She let out a sigh as if the topic itself was obvious but truthfully Naruto had no idea, and it showed, then she had to remind herself that Naruto didn’t know Sasuke for as long so she relaxed a bit. 

“Just trust me on this. Let’s just say that in all the time I’ve known the guy, I’ve never seen him take an interest in anybody so when he actually does it’s very obvious. Why do you think Suigetsu hasn’t stopped hating you?” 

“You mean he was going to stop at one point?”

“Good point. So are you going to run off and find Sasuke and throw yourself into his arms?” Karin asked. 

“No, not really, I came here to listen to you play, if anything, the teme can wait,” Naruto said with a shrug. Karin laughed at the statement, 

“Alright, then let me show you what I’ve been working on,” she said with excitement.


	8. Extra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: MCR got back together so naturally, I had to mention it. This is just an extra, it has no impact on the actual story itself, just something soft :)

“Sasuke! Sasuke!” is what the guitarist heard coming from down the hallway, not too long after, a familiar blonde barged into his bedroom. He held his phone out, expecting Sasuke to see from that distance. 

“Are you trying to show me something?” He asked. Naruto closed the door behind him before rushing to the bed where the other was sitting proceeding to sit next to him. He was jumpier than usual.

“Look!” Naruto said as he showed Sasuke what he was trying to show him before, “My Chemical Romance is back together!!” Naruto said with excitement. Sasuke’s eyes widened as he grabbed the phone from the other and started looking through the band’s social media page to make sure it was true. 

“And it’s not some fake announcement!” Naruto said happily. 

“I can see that, when did they announce this?” 

“A few days ago I think, but I’ve been avoiding the internet until now, who knew I would have opened up to that surprise. Sasuke, they’re concert tickets are going on sale in a few hours, I have to try and get them!” 

Sasuke scoffed, knowing that people are going to flock for those tickets like starving tigers finally finding their prey, “Good luck with that, dobe, I’m not even going to try,” Sasuke said, giving the phone back to the blonde. For some reason that rubbed Naruto the wrong way as he frowned almost immediately. 

“For once, just this once, can you not be such a teme?” Naruto asked, but in a tone that wasn’t typical to their usual banter. 

“Then for once, quit being a dobe,” He retorted. Naruto felt a pang in his chest, he didn’t want to be there anymore. He got off the bed and headed out of the room without saying another word. Sasuke felt like he should be relieved going back to his peace, but he just couldn’t bear it. 

-x-

Naruto went off to share his excitement with Karin who didn’t share the same enthusiasm. Turns out Karin was more into _Paramore_and other bands that weren’t MCR. Naruto even went to Juugo but even he leaned more into classic rock and metal and he would rather perish than to try and share his excitement with Suigetsu. Even by the off chance that Suigetsu was a fan, he just couldn’t do it. Naruto sulked back to his room and sat at his desk where he impatiently waited for the countdown for the ticket sales to reach zero. There were only ten minutes left. Once it was down to the last 60 seconds, Naruto was at the edge of his seat, he was practically shaking. 

5...4...3...2…

Naruto didn’t click a button so fast in his life. His phone was loading, it was loading some more and his screen went black. The whole time he waited, he didn’t realize that his phone was on its last percent. 

“...NOOO!!” Naruto exclaimed as he ran to his charger by his nightstand and quickly plugged it in. The amount of time it took for it to load up felt like a century. Finally, his screen lit up with the phone company’s logo and then his home screen. He could hardly breathe as he got back onto the site. It hadn’t sold out yet, but he had to wait in line for the tickets. His heart was beating in his head as he waited for his turn. He still had hope. Finally, it was his turn and...

SOLD OUT!!

Naruto’s face dropped. He didn’t even have a chance. He sat his phone down as he allowed himself to lay across the floor next to his bed. He felt so overwhelmed he could cry. Then there was a knock on his door. 

“Go away! I’m not in the mood,” Naruto said, but whoever was behind the door didn’t listen as they opened the door. It was Sasuke. He raised an eyebrow seeing the blonde all sad on the floor like that. 

“Get off the floor dobe,” he said. 

“You can’t make me,” Naruto grumbled. 

“Would two tickets to My Chemical Romance make you?” Sasuke then asked. Naruto’s eyes widened as he sat up quickly to look at Sasuke. 

“B-but they sold out within MINUTES!” Naruto said. 

“I must have been lucky then,” He shrugged as he opened his phone to show him the email that verified his purchase, “You’re still on the floor,” 

Naruto stood up quickly before going over to Sasuke who showed him the purchase. Naruto couldn’t help himself as he wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him into an embrace. Sasuke felt those dreaded butterflies again as he reciprocated the embrace by wrapped his free arms around his waist. 

“I’m going with you, by the way, even if you don’t want me too, I have to go, I don’t make the rules,” Naruto said as he pulled his head back to look at the other.

“Well I didn’t have anyone else in mind,” Sasuke said. Naruto couldn’t help but smirk when he noticed a rosy pink blush appear against Sasuke’s pale skin. The blonde leaned into his ear and said, “Thank you,” before placing a kiss on his cheek before pulling away entirely. 

“Now I have to call Kiba and rub it in his face!” He said as he jumped onto his bed where he could reach his phone. Sasuke stood there in shock as the sensation of the kiss still burned on his cheek. 


	9. Dobe / Teme

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Heyoooo, I don't think this fic is rated T for teens anymore hehe, oops. I hope you like it :D
> 
> Disclaimers: 
> 
> [1] Lyrics used were from the song Get Away With Murder by Jeffree Star.
> 
> I don't own any lyrics used at all.

Naruto always knew that Karin was a talented musician, but hearing her play her own material was a new experience for the blonde. It was giving him inspiration as he pulled out his phone and started typing ideas for lyrics and phrases he could go off by while he listened to Karin play. Her style was slow and calming, but at times she picked up the pace and went a little harder. He could feel that she was in the groove as she strummed her bass when he looked up from his phone and watched her play, he could tell how much she was in love with her instrument. It was as if Naruto wasn’t even there, just her and her instrument. This reminded him of the times he would just watch Sasuke play. This gave him the inspiration to write more and more, this song was for Karin. 

-x-

I listened to the song! Dude, you’re talented

  * Kiba. 

@-@ I didn’t think so, and now the number of downloads on this song is really getting to me

  * Naruto 

You’re saying that as if it’s a bad thing

  * Kiba 

Not at all! I’m just in shock y’ know? People actually like my stuff… 

  * Naruto 

Well get used to it, kit, this is your life now

  * Kiba 

-x- 

Naruto must have stared at that text for at least five minutes. _This is your life now_. It was his life now and it felt surreal. After the interview with Ino, Kakashi had told them that they’re wanted for other interviews. Not only that, the interaction between Sasuke and Naruto kind of broke the internet since then. Well, not necessarily, just the people in the fandom who are too invested in the pairings that don’t exist. Kiba even called him asking about the interview, Naruto had excused himself from dinner to take the call in the living room. it ended with Naruto turning beet red as it went something like, 

“I mean hey, get it, I’m not gay, but that Sasuke dude? Could get it,” 

“Gosh Kiba, you’re straight and you can be gayer than me sometimes,” 

“I’m just saying kit, hop on it,” 

The conversation didn’t last long after that. After he had hung up, he hadn’t realized that Sasuke had gone into the living room too until he turned around and saw him sitting on the couch. 

“You’re dinner got cold so I threw it away,” Sasuke said. 

“Why did you do that?” 

“It was bothering me,” he said. Naruto narrowed his eyes at him. 

“Who were you talking too on the phone?” Sasuke then asked as he was turning on the tv as if he was just sparking up a regular conversation, but Naruto saw right through him. 

“Why do you care, teme?” 

“I don’t, but you were pretty loud,” 

“That doesn’t even make sense! And if you must know, I was just on the phone with a friend,”

“You have those?” 

Naruto raised his eyebrow, he knew Sasuke would have wit to him, but he was being too witty. He climbed over the couch to sit next to him, but the way he landed made him a little too close. 

“What are you doing?” Sasuke asked as he leaned away from him when he noticed his personal space was being disturbed. Naruto scooted away a bit. 

“I’m just trying to figure out if there’s something wrong with you, are you sick?” 

“Can you bother Karin or something? I’m trying to watch tv,” 

Naruto observed his side profile, it was clear that he was in some sort of mood, but he couldn’t pin it out. 

“You’re getting stressed out,” Naruto suddenly said. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” 

Naruto grabbed the remote from Sasuke’s hand and turned off the tv. 

“Push me,” Naruto said suddenly. 

“You’re the one stressing me out, tch dobe,” Sasuke said as he tried to reach for the remote but Naruto only pulled it farther away and when Sasuke got closer, he only pushed him away. 

“I told you to push me,” Naruto said. This was getting Sasuke irritated and so he did. 

“Is that all you got?” Naruto edged on. He saw the irritation grow in Sasuke’s eyes as he launched himself forward. They started wrestling for the remote, Sasuke may have been on top of him, shoving the blonde’s face into the cushion, but Naruto managed to wiggle himself out, not loosening the death grip he had on the remote control. He pushed at Sasuke’s stomach to knock the air out of him so he would have time to escape his grip. When Sasuke wasn’t looking, he tossed the remote to the ground. 

“Is that all you got? I thought you worked out,” Naruto teasing. Sasuke shot him a look. 

They didn’t know how long they ended up wrestling for, at one point, Naruto was close to tapping out when he found himself in a headlock, but he didn’t want to give up yet. 

“What the hell is going on here?!” Karin yelled that’s when the boys paused and looked over at the bass player. Sasuke had Naruto’s face pinned to the arm cushion with his arm being held behind his back, but he quickly released him when it registered that Karin walked in. 

“Oh, you know… boys being boys?” Naruto said. Karin let out a sigh, 

“I thought both of you decided to hate each other all of a sudden,” she said, “but turns out the both of you were just being idiots. Now quit hogging the living room, my show is about to come on in ten minutes,” She said. 

“ That’s my cue to leave,” Sasuke said as he got up and straightened out his shirt. 

“Aw, but we were having so much fun!” Naruto whined, “and don’t you want to watch the show?” 

“Not interested in some romance drama,” He said as he made his way out of the living room. 

“Romance drama? Which one?” Naruto asked as he watched Karin pick up the remote as she sat by Naruto’s feet. 

“Oh y’ know, just some vampire show~,” Karin said. Naruto’s eyes widened, “no way, you watch Fangs and Heartbreak too?!” 

“You mean the best show ever?!” 

Naruto sat up and made himself comfortable, “I’ve been pretty caught up, but you have to tell me, who do you think should be together?” Naruto asked excitedly. Being able to get distracted thanks to his bandmates made it easier for him to get the music video and social media off his mind. No matter how much he tried to forget about it, the mental countdown to the release was ticking in his head, and it still wasn’t coming out for another week. 

Within that week had gotten busier than he expected. There had been interviews, they started the processes of recording the second song. They had agreed that the second song sounded better with both Naruto and Suigetsu singing it too so being apart of the song while guiding the band members to his vision was also a challenge since this song was different from the last. Suigetsu seemed to actually enjoy this one better than the last, Naruto figured it was because he was able to relate to it being stuck in this contract he was in. It was like he was throwing shots at Orochimaru but retracting them as if he was just making jokes. Naruto and Sasuke had also been getting closer as they kept pulling all-nighters to write songs which ended up with them passing out on Sasuke’s bed. 

Naruto had also gone back to writing lyrics on his own while the other band members had their own little side gigs like individual photo shoots and interviews. He was so distracted by the schedule, he hadn’t realized how soon the day had come. The music video. 

-x-

The music video was coming out tonight and Naruto wanted nothing more than to wish that all the computers and devices in the world crashed simultaneously during the upload process and somehow erased the video. Karin and Juugo couldn’t wait for the music video to come out. In fact, they’re gonna have a whole setup in the living room so the band could watch it together. Naruto wished they wouldn’t though. He wished he had never been a part of the project. Looking back on it, he wished he would have spoken up to Sai about him feeling uncomfortable and actually pressed him about it, but he didn’t. Why didn’t he? Sai was awful, but it’s not like he’s a monster. It was the pressure, the expectation, that damn contract.

During the meeting with Orochimaru about the contract, while Naruto was able to make it more lenient, there were sill rules he had to follow. One of the rules was that if there was any project that would gain the band’s popularity, then he would have to go through with it. At the time it was brand deals and ads that Naruto had in mind, not posing as a submissive prisoner under Sai’s dominance. The truth of the matter is, he didn’t want to face Orochimaru again for a bit. He convinced himself that it was just going to be a music video, he’ll just go through with it and it’ll be fine, but it wasn’t until after the shooting was done is when he felt this pang of regret.

“You’ve been staring at nothing for five minutes now,” Sasuke pointed out. They were back to writing songs. They were in their usual position with Sasuke’s back facing the headboard with his one leg folded and the other dangling off the bed with a guitar in his lap and Naruto sitting pretzel style in front of him at an angle while he had his pen and notebook on him. Naruto was too caught up in his thoughts that he hadn’t heard the other talk to him. Sasuke raised his eyebrow at the lack of response. He let out a sigh before reached over and taking the pen and notebook away from him which caused Naruto to snap out of his trance. 

“Hey!” 

“Break time. You keep zoning out,” Sasuke said as he placed the items on his nightstand followed by setting his guitar down against it. 

“I could have been thinking of lyrics!” 

“So then what are they?”

“Huh?” 

“These lyrics you thought of,” 

Naruto stayed silent as his gaze averted to his lap. Sasuke grabbed his phone that already had a pair of earbuds plugged into them and placed one in his ear as he laid back and started stretching his legs out on his bed, nudging Naruto a bit. 

“Are you going to move or what?” 

Naruto looked up and saw that Sasuke was holding an earbud out to him. The blonde crawled over to lay next to the other before grabbing the earbud and putting it in his ear. Sasuke then passed him his phone so he could pick a song. He grabbed it and started scrolling through. Naruto was thoroughly impressed by the number of songs Sasuke had on his phone, it was as if there was no end to the scrolling. Then he landed on the one song he’s actually had an urge to listen too. 

_The Ghost of You by My Chemical Romance _

Once he clicked on it, he put the phone to sleep as he turned on his side and curled up slightly right next to Sasuke as the song played in both their ears. The sun had been warming the both of them as it peered through the windows, shining a ray of light on them. Sasuke silently admired the scene of the sun kissing Naruto’s skin just right, but he couldn’t settle for the fact that something was clearly wrong. Once the chorus of the song went by the second time, Naruto held his arms closer to his own chest. Whatever was wrong, it was clear that Naruto didn’t want to say it aloud, instead, he chose this song. Sasuke reached over to stroke blond hair, this made Naruto look up at him silently, but that was enough for Sasuke to shift closer in order to pull the other into his chest. With his ear against a steady heartbeat, he wrapped his arm around Sasuke as he snuggled his face into his chest. Sasuke continued to stroke his hair as they laid there in silence with only the sound of music playing in one of their ears. 

It didn’t take long before Naruto’s eyes felt heavy. He noticed that he would fall asleep more often when he’s around the guitarist. He couldn’t fathom why. Even in his past relationships, he would be the one staying up late on his phone while someone slept on his chest, but not this time. He was either calm enough for once in his life to fall asleep, or sleep was catching up to him. Either way, he felt happy that it was with someone he felt like he was really developing feelings for. He just hoped those feelings can be returned. 

-x- 

Sasuke was woken up by what he thought was knocking on the door, but for a second he thought it may have been apart of his dream. He felt a weight on him but when he looked down, it all came back to him. Music was still playing, but both their earbuds had fallen out so he reached around for his phone, which was tucked at his side, to pause the music. 

“Just open the door, Karin, Naruto does it all the time,” Suigetsu said as he opened the door only to find Naruto on Sasuke’s chest, the sound of the door opening caused Naruto to jolt his head up. 

“What the fuck is this?” Suigetsu said loudly which caused both of them to flinch. Naruto realized he was still on Sasuke so he pulled away quickly, his face feeling warm all of a sudden. 

“Oh calm down Suigetsu, they do this all the time,” Karin said. 

“Since when was this even a thing?!” Suigetsu shouted. 

“Stop yelling,” Sasuke said, he was sitting up now, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. 

Karin shrugged, “dunno, but you need to chill, they’re just sleeping together,” 

“Why do you have to say it like that?” Naruto whined.

“Is there a reason why both of you are in my room?” Sasuke asked, trying to steer away from the conversation. 

“So we can watch the music video together!” Karin said. 

Sasuke noticed that Naruto cringed when he was reminded of that, “right, yeah, that,” he said with an awkward chuckle. 

“I feel like you should be more excited, Naru,” Karin said. 

“Something like that. Let’s just go watch this,” Naruto said as he got off the bed, ignoring the look he was receiving from Suigetsu. Everyone followed him down to the living room, Karin already had the tab open of the music video. Juugo was sitting on a lounge chair with a bottle of beer at hand. 

“Hey, you found them!” Juugo said, “where were they?” 

“On top of each other!” Suigestu exclaimed. 

Karin rolled her eyes, “they were sleeping in Sasuke’s room,” she said. 

“See told you,” Juugo said with a shrug. 

“Wait how long have you two known about this?” Suigetsu asked angrily.

“You’re acting like we always knock on Sasuke’s door when we need him,” Juugo said with a laugh which only made Sasuke give him a look. 

“Plus there’s nothing going on guys, just uh...naps,” Naruto said awkwardly, “anyway, let’s watch this music video guys, fair warning, it’s really sexual and gay,” Naruto said as he sat down on the couch. Sasuke sat in the other lounge chair closest to Naruto while Karin sat next to the blonde in the middle and Suigetsu was right beside her. Then Karin pressed play. 

The video started with Sai wearing a suit as he was waiting for a fancy car to pull up. During these scenes, credits were appearing. Sai’s phone wrang, it was a woman’s voice, 

“Sai honey, I won’t be back home for another week, I’m sorry,” she said, 

“It’s okay my love, don’t rush, take as long as you need,” Sai said lovingly. The scene switched to the car pulling up to a building where he walked into the side entrance while he was taking off his tie and he was starting to unbutton his shirt that revealed something shiny underneath. That’s when the music started. The scene transitioned to Sai wearing that tight outfit and high heel platforms walking towards a door while other clips were cut in of him singing naked in a huge white bathtub with black water or him pole dancing.

Then it transitioned to a scene of Naruto tied to a chair with tape over his mouth. 

Juugo let out a whistle, Naruto’s face was beet red, but he was relieved that they decided on that position. His palms began to feel sweaty again and he didn’t dare to look at anyone else which was hard because he didn’t want to watch the music video either. As he watched, he was surprised to see that the video was tamer than he thought. It wasn’t just scenes of him but Sai doing his thing in different clips. 

Two minutes and thirty seconds in, that’s when the scene of Sai licking of the tape came in. Aside from the music video playing, Naruto could probably hear a pin drop. He glanced over at everyone and their eyes were glued to the screen. 

_[1] Did you forget that love was dangerous?_

_And I feel like I'm, I…._

And that’s when Sai rips the tape off his mouth and kisses him. In the scene, Naruto kisses back followed by cuts of Sai pulling away and kissing down his neck while other scenes transitioned in until the music video was over. They sat in silence for a minute and It was driving Naruto insane 

“Is anybody going to say anything?!” Naruto asked. 

“Yeah, why am I strangely turned on right now,” Juugo said. 

“Does anyone have literally anything else to say?!” Naruto asked and that’s when Sasuke got up without a word and started heading back to his room. Naruto’s shoulders dropped as he watched Sasuke leave. He really hoped this didn’t affect any progress he had getting with him. 

“Well, I didn’t expect that,” Karin said. 

“Hey um Naruto…” Suigetsu said. 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you happen to still have Sai’s number?” He then said. 

Naruto sighed, “no but I’m sure Kakashi can help you arrange something,” 

“That was a lot, didn’t expect to see that side of you,” Karin said. 

“There isn’t that side of me, I was only following directions,” 

“But it looked so convincing,” she commented. Naruto’s face felt warm again. 

“Whatever, that’s Sai for you. I’m gonna stare at the fridge for two minutes before deciding that I really can’t stomach anything right now,” Naruto said before getting up and doing just that. _Sasuke…_

Naruto went upstairs and found himself in front of Sasuke’s door again and when he went to open it, the door was locked. The moment he stood there felt like an eternity. He pulled his hand back from the doorknob and started backing away from the door. 

He wanted to bother him so badly but instead, he started walking towards his room instead. 

The next day rolled around and Naruto hadn’t seen Sasuke all day. He even woke up early enough to try and catch him coming back from his morning run, but it never happened. He tried to keep his mind off the guitarist by writing music with Karin again in her room, but even she could feel the tension. 

“You have to talk to him,” Karin said. 

“His door is locked,”

Karin let out a sigh, leaning back into the chair and started thinking for a moment,

“He’ll come around soon, just give it another day,” 

“Just… why is he acting like this? I told him Sai was only an ex, this was only a music video, I really thought I was finally getting somewhere with him…” he said, looking down at his notebook sadly. 

“He probably didn’t realize that you’re fully capable of not waiting around. That you’re not like Suigetsu who runs to Sasuke’s side whenever he gets the chance,” 

“You think?” 

Karin only shrugged as she picked at her strings gently, “just give him some time, he can’t hide from you forever,” 

That’s what Naruto did, he gave him some time and space. That didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be awkward. Eventually, they had band rehearsals again and Naruto had seen Sasuke finally in the recording room, but he was barely acknowledged. Naruto’s shoulders fell as he carried on with rehearsals as he was listening to the instrumentals with Kakakshi this time. While Naruto was listening to the first run-through, he pressed the mic’s button and spoke into it, 

“Sasuke, you’re changing up the chords, can you stick to what you’ve written before first and then we can start editing?” 

Sasuke didn’t really respond so Naruto was going to assume that he was heard and so they started from the beginning. Sasuke didn’t listen though, it was clear that he was changing it on purpose. 

“This isn’t like him, what happened between you two in the last few days?” Kakashi asked. 

“Nothing! I tried talking to him but he keeps locking himself in his room!” Naruto shouts knowing that the band couldn’t hear him through the glass. 

“Well try harder because this isn’t going to run smoothly if we keep going like this,” Kakashi stated. 

Naruto sighed and spoke into the mic again only to be ignored. This was starting to get to him now. His face was turning red but out of frustration this time. He took off his headphones and stormed into the booth and walked right up to Sasuke. 

“I don’t know what your problem is, teme, but you’re being a real dick right now!” Naruto said. The other two band members stayed silent, not wanting to intervene. 

“You sound like a child,” Sasuke said. 

“That’s it! I’m tired of you acting like such a smart ass! I'm acting like a child? You’re the one changing up the chords out of nowhere to piss me off!”

“Hn.” 

Naruto felt his eye twitch before unplugging Sasuke’s guitar from the amp and started dragging him out of the studio. “We’ll be back,” Naruto said as they made their way upstairs into the hallway outside of the door. 

“What is up with you?” Naruto asked, a lot more genuine this time. Sasuke didn’t respond. 

“... Sasuke you have to talk to me, this has been driving me insane. I just want to write songs with you again and mess with you. You’ve been acting differently ever since the music video. Did seeing Sai kiss me bother you that much?” Naruto asked. Sasuke only pressed his lips together as he looked to the side, continuing the silent treatment. 

“There’s nothing going on between me and Sai, I broke it off with him for a reason and-“ Naruto was cut off when he suddenly found lips pressed against his own. His eyes widened, he was too in shock to kiss back. When Sasuke realized this, he pulled away. 

“You have to stop talking so much,” Sasuke said. Naruto’s face felt hot. 

“I-I um…” Naruto stammered as he tried to get words out. 

“Whatever, let’s get back,” Sasuke said as he was about to open the door to the studio only to get stopped by Naruto’s hand grabbing onto his arm, pulling him back before he placed a hand on Sasuke’s face and leaned in to press his lips against his. It was soft and slow. Naruto’s eyes had fluttered shut as the butterflies in his stomach were going crazy. Once he finally pulled away, their eyes locked, Naruto pressed his forehead against his, 

“I didn’t want to kiss Sai… I’ve been wanting to kiss you this whole time,” He whispered. 

“Why didn’t you?” Sasuke asked. 

“You’re acting like you’re an open book you asshole,” Naruto said, hitting his chest lightly, “you’re such an asshole,” 

“We should get back and talk about this later,” Sasuke said. 

“Are you going to keep changing the chords?” Naruto asked, pulling his head back. Sasuke shook his head. They started heading back down, Naruto was envious on how calm and cool Sasuke was able to act while he was obviously red in the face and had trouble concealing his emotions. 

“What happened?” Kakashi asked. 

“We uh, talked,” Naruto said with a cough, “alright, let’s keep going, I want to get this done today please,” 

The other band members noticed the sudden difference in the tension, but they didn’t bother asking at that moment as they continued with rehearsals. It was a long day as usual and they didn’t stop until they were done which wasn’t until Naruto said so. Karin was nearly about to lose her patience until Naruto called it a day. 

“Finally! My fingers are as raw as an uncooked chicken,” Karin exclaimed. 

“Yeah I've been needing to pee for some time now,” Juugo said, stretching his arms. 

“Sorry guys, but hey! We perfected the instrumentals so that’s all that matters,” Naruto said into the microphone. He looked over at Kakashi who had fallen asleep in his chair. He nudged his shoulder in order to wake him up before he developed a neck cramp from handing his neck. 

“Huh? Are we done?” Kakashi asked as he rubbed his eyes. 

“For today,” Naruto said as he started wrapping up all his notes. Kakashi said goodbye before he made his way out of the studio. 

-x-

It had to have been too late for anyone to be up, but Naruto was in the living room eating from a bowl of fruit he prepared. He hated vegetables, and he couldn’t find any candy, so he settled on grapes and some orange slices. The lights were off and he had a romantic comedy on the big screen with the volume on a low enough setting for only him to hear. After rehearsal earlier, Sasuke had disappeared into his room once again. Naruto didn’t want to bother him this time. If anything, he was too shy too anyway. After the kiss, he hasn’t been able to think straight, let alone sleep and that’s how he found himself here. 

“Can’t sleep without me?” Sasuke asked. He had gone downstairs to get himself some water until he noticed a certain blonde in the living room again. Naruto whipped his head around, seeing Sasuke walk up to the couch. 

“I’d say the same about you, what are you doing awake? At least I have a reason,”

“Right, your undiagnosed insomnia. What are you watching?” Sasuke asked before he was able to answer the question. On the screen, there was a really awkward kiss scene.

Naruto looked back at the tv and cringed. He had seen the movie before, so recollecting the context of the scene made it worse. 

“I almost forgot about this scene, basically she’s crazy and her boyfriend wants to breakup but instead of going through with it, he’s paying his twin brother to be him while he goes out of town, right now the girlfriend wants to have sex so the twin is panicking,” Naruto says as he pops another grape in his mouth. 

“No wonder you and Karin get along,” Sasuke says. 

“Don’t knock it till you try it, come sit, “Naruto said, gesturing to the spot next to him. Sasuke sat down beside him. Naruto offered him some of his grapes and he took his offer. Naruto felt brave for some reason. Perhaps it was because it was just the two of them and so he scooted a little closer and leaned into Sasuke comfortably. Unexpectedly, Sasuke wraps his arm around the other’s shoulders as he relaxed into the couch. 

“Is the twin falling for the girlfriend?” Sasuke asked. 

“No, the twin is very gay,” Naruto said, “and very cute too,” 

“I can tell you have a type,”

Naruto lifted his head up, “and what do you mean by that?” 

“Are you serious? Black hair, pale, should I add anything else to that list?” Sasuke teased. Naruto was about to move away from him only to feel that the arm wrapped around him was keeping him there, he felt his cheeks warm up. 

“I don’t date assholes,” Naruto finally said which only made Sasuke smirk. 

“But you only kiss them, right?” 

Naruto hadn’t realized how close their faces were, he felt drawn to those lips but he didn’t want to give in so easily. 

“What’s your type?” Naruto said in a mocking tone. 

“It seems like my type has been dumb, and blonde,” 

Naruto didn’t appreciate how Sasuke was dominating the situation. He knew what he was doing and he wanted to make sure he knew he wasn’t such an easy person to bottom. He preferred being a switch, in reality, something Sai never understood. 

“I guess I fit that category,” Naruto said. His behavior changed, he turned more towards Sasuke and placed his hand where the end of Sasuke’s shirt met skin. He slid his fingers underneath the shirt, under the lighting of the tv screen, he could tell he was making Sasuke flush. This reaction only made him bolder as Naruto leaned into Sasuke neck and started to place a few kisses on such warm skin. He felt Sasuke’s hand on his shoulder grip him slightly before it started sliding down to Naruto’s waist. Sasuke tilted his neck back to give him more room. Naruto’s fingers traced over his abdominal muscles, he felt the skin twitch underneath his fingertips as he lifted his hand higher and grazed his finger over a nipple, causing Sasuke to let out a hiss of pleasure. Naruto smirked as he started to kiss upwards and down his jaw line. Their eyes finally met. They were both flushed, their eyes were filled with the longing to touch each other. Sasuke didn’t take any more time as he leaned in to press his lips against the blonde. This time is rough. Naruto pulled away only to shift himself to straddle against Sasuke before their lips met again. They were both wearing pajama pants so they were able to feel everything. Naruto pressed his hips against Sasuke’s, making them both let out a moan. Sasuke encouraged this as his hands wandered to his lower back and pulled him closer. Naruto found one of Sasuke’s hands and brought it down lower to make things more heated. Sasuke pulled back from the kiss to catch his breath, that’s when Naruto started moving his hips against him. The noises that were coming out of Sasuke only turned him on more. 

Out of the corner of Naruto’s eye, he saw the hallway light turn on, he pulled away quickly, stopping his movements. Sasuke looked up him questionably. When Naruto heard the sound of someone walking, he got off of Sasuke quickly, sitting on the other end of the couch with his knees pulled up to his chest. 

“What are you two doing awake?” Juugo asked sleepily when he walked into the living, looking back and forth between Sasuke and Naruto. 

“Uh, couldn’t sleep, watching a movie,” Naruto said nervously. Juugo looked up at the screen. 

“Oh I love that movie,” Juugo said, “are those grapes?”

“Yeah, do you want some?” Naruto asked, hoping that he would leave soon, but the longer Juugo stayed, the more he was becoming less stiff. 

“No,” Juugo said as he went to sit down between the two on the couch.

“What are you doing here, shouldn’t you be asleep?” Sasuke asked, getting annoyed. 

“Yeah, but I thought I heard something so I’m here,” He said, with his head laying back on the couch, his eyelids drooping once he got comfortable. 

Sasuke let out a sigh, “well I’m going to bed,” Naruto’s face fell upon hearing this as he watched Sasuke get up. Naruto watched him walk behind the couch and towards him, “Goodnight,” he said as he ran his fingers through blonde hair before heading back to his room. A smile appeared on Naruto’s face as Sasuke reassured him that everything was fine. 

Naruto ended up watching the rest of the movie with a sleeping drummer snoring slightly right next to him, but he wasn’t focused on any of that, instead, he was just happy and felt giddy on the inside. He couldn’t wait to see him again. 


	10. Relationships

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: It's been months huh, yeah sorry about that. Life hit me like a bag of cinder blocks and then some, but I'm back and better than ever! I hope everyone is staying home and being safe during this pandemic. Luckily with this extra time, I should be able to write more, and I'm excited about it. Honestly, as dangerous as a grocery job is right now due to being exposed by all sorts of people, it's the only thing that's keeping me from losing my damn mind. 
> 
> But anywho, enjoy this chapter, and expect more to come. I haven't abandoned this story, I just got sidetracked :D

-Recap- 

Out of the corner of Naruto’s eye, he saw the hallway light turn on, he pulled away quickly, stopping his movements. Sasuke looked up to him questionably. When Naruto heard the sound of someone walking, he got off of Sasuke quickly, sitting on the other end of the couch with his knees pulled up to his chest. 

“What are you two doing awake?” Juugo asked sleepily when he walked into the living, looking back and forth between Sasuke and Naruto. 

“Uh, couldn’t sleep, watching a movie,” Naruto said nervously. Juugo looked up at the screen. 

“Oh I love that movie,” Juugo said, “are those grapes?”

“Yeah, do you want some?” Naruto asked, hoping that he would leave soon, but the longer Juugo stayed, the more he was becoming less stiff. 

“No,” Juugo said as he went to sit down between the two on the couch.

“What are you doing here, shouldn’t you be asleep?” Sasuke asked, getting annoyed. 

“Yeah, but I thought I heard something so I’m here,” He said, with his head lying back on the couch, his eyelids drooping once he got comfortable. 

Sasuke let out a sigh, “well I’m going to bed,” Naruto’s face fell upon hearing this as he watched Sasuke get up. Naruto watched him walk behind the couch and towards him, “Goodnight,” he said as he ran his fingers through blonde hair before heading back to his room. A smile appeared on Naruto’s face as Sasuke reassured him that everything was fine. 

Naruto ended up watching the rest of the movie with a sleeping drummer snoring slightly right next to him, but he wasn’t focused on any of that, instead, he was just happy and felt giddy on the inside. He couldn’t wait to see him again. 

-end of a recap-

A day off was almost uncalled for, but with the lack of inspiration lately, Kakashi allowed it, and Naruto used this opportunity to meet his friend Kiba halfway. It was a long trip, especially on public transportation, but a good playlist made it easy. Despite the warm temperature, Naruto kept a hood on, it was a sleeveless hoodie and he hoped that along with a pair of sunglasses would be enough to conceal himself. He didn’t understand why Sasuke insisted on him wearing a disguise but he went with it. 

Hot Peppers was the place Kiba begged the blonde to meet at, he didn’t even have to beg either, Naruto was just excited to see his friend again. 

_I’m sitting in a booth towards the back _

_ -Kiba _

Naruto slid his phone back in his pocket as he walked into the restaurant where he was met with a host. He mentioned how he was meeting somebody so they let him look around and eventually spotted a dopey looking smile. 

“Long time no see buddy!” Kiba said once he saw Naruto walking over to the table. 

“You don’t understand how much of a relief it is to see you,” Naruto said as he slid into the booth across from his friend. Once they ordered their food and drinks, Kiba went on about how much popularity the music store has gained ever since the concert and his dog. 

“Iruka even brags about you sometimes, it gets kind of annoying,” 

“Well get used to it because I’m on my way to being a rockstar, and don’t worry, I won’t forget you when you’re famous,” Naruto teased, 

“Oh shut up, and you better not, but never mind me, how’ve you been? Please tell me what it’s like to be rich and famous,” 

“It’s like a new type of stress. I don’t have to worry about money, at least not now. Despite all the money, I still have a hard time spending it too, like I can’t bring myself too. Not only that, but I also didn’t realize how hard it is to only write music as a career and-”

“Pause. You’re overthinking, kit,” Kiba said as the food was sat down in front of them, “All right! Food! I’ve been waiting for this,” 

Naruto smiled at the enthusiasm. He missed this. He missed working with him. Kiba didn’t realize it, but he was able to keep him grounded. They still kept in contact, if anything, this change might have brought them closer. 

“So can you tell me about you and Sasuke?” Kiba said with a smirk before taking a sip of his drink. 

The blonde’s cheeks warmed up, averting his eyes to the stir fry he had ordered, “What about us?”

“You know what I mean, what’s the status? I saw your interview with Ino,”

“...So we might be a thing, I don’t know yet, I mean we kissed-”

“You two kissed?! 

“Shhh!! Shush! And yes, we did. A few times...and then some,” Naruto said as he moved his food around with his chopsticks. 

“Ooooh, sounds to me you lied in the interview~” 

“About that, this whole thing is also a secret, anyway,”

“Considering the fanbase, smart choice. Well, that’s cute, I hope it works out, you needed something like this,”

“Something like what?”

“Something closer than a friendship. You’re such an expressive person, but you hide so much at the same time, maybe this will make you open up more and give you the inspiration you need to write songs,” Kiba said with a shrug as he continued to eat. 

“Wow, call me out much?” 

They kept talking until Naruto found himself running late to the last bus back. He had just made it in time. Sitting on the bus gave him time to think about what Kiba had told him. He knew he was right about it too. He wondered if his feelings would even be an issue. It was too early to tell, but he couldn’t help but think about it. 

_Next time, we should meet at that donut cafe place! and text me when you get back xoxoxo_

_\- Kiba _

_-x-The Next Day-x-_

The public had been finding out about Naruto more and more. Videos of him opening the show that night for Taka were popping up out of nowhere, his videos from his account were being reposted along with his pictures. It felt weird, he felt like he should treat this as a form of admiration, but it also felt invasive. He turned off his DMS, anything important he left in the hands of Kakashi. Occasionally he would post about how much he appreciated his new fans. That’s another thing that threw him off, these people were now his fans. People who never knew he existed were now his fans. It felt surreal. He didn’t have time to post covers anymore, now his account had been a place to post random pictures that looked aesthetically pleased like a close-up photo of Sasuke strumming on his guitar in black and white without his face in it or his dinner because he felt like he needed to show their chef appreciation. That’s all he had time for. He only really kept in touch with Kiba. He had officially quit his position at the music store not too long ago. He was lucky to have a boss like Iruka though, he said that if Naruto were to come back that there would be a position waiting just for him. He felt bad that he wasn’t able to keep in touch with him as much as he wanted too. He knew he wanted to visit at some point, but with how much they’ve been working, there was no time either. The band’s social media account has already started advertising for this album that Naruto wasn’t even halfway done yet and it was making him anxious. He wrote four songs already and only three of them were recorded but two of them still needed to be finalized. 

The band life was so different from what he had expected too. He was able to get a whole new wardrobe at that point and Kakashi had also been making him go to singing lessons to improve his technique. 

Sasuke and Naruto’s thing that’s been going on has been pretty low key not only towards the public, but within the band too, but it was clear that the only person who hadn't noticed was Suigetsu. They didn't have a name for it yet, not like there’s been time too, but what Naruto did appreciate being able to fall asleep in Sasuke’s bed without needing an excuse. In the beginning, they would pass out due to pulling all-nighters over something work-related. Soon enough, Naruto started finding himself in Sasuke’s bed after not being able to sleep. As far as intimacy goes, Naruto was very affectionate before bed, but they hadn’t got too far due to their schedules, especially since Kakashi has been making him go to vocal lessons bright and early in the morning. 

Naruto’s vocal teacher was something else. He had never met such a strange man. He wore a lot of green, had this awful bowl cut, but was a surprisingly good teacher, he always dreaded waking up to go to these lessons, like now for example. 

The sound of his alarm clock alerted both boys that it was seven in the morning. Naruto flinched at the sound and attempted to drown it out by burrowing himself further under the covers. He felt Sasuke shift beside him and the beeping suddenly stopped. It was silent for a few seconds and Naruto was just about to slip into sleep again until he felt Sasuke shake his shoulder slightly. 

“If you’re going to keep waking me up with your alarm and continue falling asleep, you're not going to sleep here anymore,” Sasuke said. Naruto let out a groan. His eyelids opened slightly, his vision blocked by the blanket. Sasuke shook him again, a little harder this time, “get up, dobe,” Sasuke said. 

Naruto’s eyes opened a little more as he moved the blanket down to his chest, the first thing he saw was Sasuke’s face. It almost annoyed him on how cute the guitarist looked at this early in the morning. 

“Why can’t I just skip this one lesson? It doesn’t sound like I’m any different anyway,” 

“That’s because you always hear yourself open your mouth, but never listen to what’s coming out,” 

“Hey, can I not receive this sass at seven in the morning?” 

“Just get up, loser, before Kakashi starts looking for you,” Sasuke said. He had already gotten up, stretching his arms as he made his way towards his closet. 

“Fine. and I’m not doing it because you told me too, but because I can,” Naruto said, but the only response he got was a typical grunt before Sasuke disappeared into his bathroom with some clothes at hand. 

In about thirty minutes, Naruto was in the “blue room” which is what the band called it. It was where Naruto’s singing lessons were usually held because it was soundproof. The room was blue, it had a piano and some couches, naturally, it all looked expensive.

“Naruto! Good to see ya!” Guy said walking into the room with some water bottles and a bag hanging from his shoulder. 

“You’re too happy, Guy,” Naruto commented as he watched his vocal coach set his things down on one of the couches. 

Guy let out a laugh from his chest, “Another day alive is a great reason to be this happy, kid, what can I say? Now, after this lesson, I’m going to give you a little bit of homework,” 

Naruto’s face dropped, “But why?!” 

“To improve your talent of course!” 

“I’m not even the lead vocalist, why should I?” 

“Now don’t you argue with me, don’t you want to sound better?” 

“I mean, yeah, but-”

“Then stop asking questions! Now let’s begin,” 

-x-

The schedule was that the band was going to meet in the living room around ten.

Naruto felt like the vocal lesson didn’t wake him up enough to his surprise. That or it wore him out. He found himself drinking energy drinks more often, which Sasuke disapproved only because it made the blonde more hyper and annoying. 

The deadline was still so far away, but the songwriting and rehearsing and recording were going to be more time consuming than he had ever imagined. The first few songs were easy to work on because he had written parts of the songs before and he just worked on them more and pieced them together. Parts he had been working on for months. Now he had to start from scratch. He tried to repress his anxiety, but as days went on, it was harder to hide it from a certain guitarist who he had already felt comfortable with. 

Writing songs and working with Sasuke wasn’t any different. For some reason, Naruto felt like it would after they started kissing, but everything still felt normal. They didn’t display any public display of affection around the band members, it was something they both didn’t even need to discuss. They didn’t worry about such things at the moment as Naruto was back to songwriting in Sasuke’s room. Instead of sitting across from the guitarist, he sat against the headboard right beside him. The only issue was, they were both stuck on what to produce. Sasuke was strumming random chords, but Naruto wasn’t connecting with any of them. It was starting to get the songwriter frustrated. He could only see Sasuke's side profile and his eyes started to wander. Naruto bit his lip slightly, he didn’t know if this was going to inspire him to write lyrics, but it would release any stress he had. While Sasuke continued to strum on his guitar, Naruto leaned over and found an opening to start planting kisses on his neck. The sound of strumming came to a halt as Sasuke instinctively tilted his head to give him more room. 

“We’re supposed to have a song done by tomorrow,” Sasuke said, but showed no signs of stopping him. 

“And we will,” Naruto said as he slid his hand behind the guitar and up Sasuke’s shirt causing a shiver to run down his spine, “and besides, I think we both need a little inspiration,” Naruto said close to his ear before giving his earlobe a small nibble. Sasuke bit his lip. He felt the blood rush south while Naruto started to touch him. He pulled away from the blonde only to put his guitar down. 

“Hn.”

A smirk landed on Naruto’s lips. When Sasuke turned to him, he decided to reach out to place his hand on Sasuke’s neck and pulled him into a kiss. Sasuke kissed back, letting Naruto take the lead as he gestured Sasuke onto his back. Naruto straddled him. The blonde began to thrust himself against him slowly, causing a groan to escape Sasuke’s mouth as his hands gestured down to rest on his lower hips.

They became invested with each other, everything around them became a blur, so much so, they didn’t even hear one of their phones vibrate the first time. The second time it vibrated it was ignored. Sasuke tightened his grip a little bit as he swiftly changed their positions. 

“My turn,” he said in a low tone in Naruto’s ear. It made the blonde feel like butter melting under the heat. Something like this would make him fight for dominance, but the kisses being planted on his neck made him weak. 

That’s when the phone started buzzing again. 

“Okay, but-mmm, you should probably get that,” Naruto said with his eyes barely open. 

He felt Sasuke sigh against his neck before pulling away and reaching over to finally get his phone from the nightstand to answer it. An idea crossed the blonde’s mind. Sasuke had his body pressed against Naruto’s side since he had slid off slightly. Naruto hovered his hand over Sasuke’s groin area and cupped it sensually, giving his bulge a little massage. Sasuke’s reaction was immediate as his eyes rolled to the back of his head as he struggled to focus on the person on the other line. 

“Okay… we’ll be right down in like 10 minutes... maybe 15,” Sasuke hung up the phone and glared at the blonde. 

“Don’t look at me like that,”

“Kakashi is calling a meeting, it’s 10 remember? and you created an issue,” he said. 

“I guess I just have to fix it then,” 

The blonde had Sasuke on his back again. They kissed as Naruto undid Sasuke’s pants. Feeling their tongues against each other was a dangerous game for the blonde as he thoroughly enjoyed the feeling and so he pulled away to trail kisses down his neck as his hand shuffled beneath grey boxer briefs. 

-x-

When both boys finally made an appearance in the living room, they were met with a smirking redhead, a tired-looking manager, a drummer who was too busy playing a game on his phone where he didn’t even realize that the 15 minutes had been 20, and what was surprising enough is that Sugetsu was just as late as he came walking in right after. Naruto tried avoiding eye contact with the bassist but he could feel that look on her face from across the room as the meeting started. 

Sasuke had sat in one of the chairs while Naruto chose the floor so he could lay his head on the coffee table while Kakashi lectured him about deadlines. The pressure weighed more on him and at this point, he truly felt stuck. Once the meeting was over, the atmosphere in the room shifted. He stayed there for a while, even Sasuke decided to give him some space. 

Where Naruto laid his head, he got a good look at the glass doors that lead to the pool and with the sudden urge that kicked into his body, he decided to get up and made his way outside. The way the setting sun reflected off the water lured him closer to the water. 

What even rhymed with water? 

His mind drew a blank. 

The music industry is what he’d imagine and more. New clothes, a bigger house, all the food he could eat. His opportunities felt so limited though. He had set the tone for this album already but he had already wanted to switch things up a little, but with the album, it just wouldn’t work.

Without even bothering to take his clothes off, he jumped in.

The cold water felt like ice against his skin. His body had been used to the warm temperature of the mansion, he didn't expect to start shivering soon after he finally resurfaced, gasping for air. 

This is the part where he’s supposed to get a spark of inspiration, but alas, he was only left drenched and smelling like chlorine as the setting sun blinded him. 

He stayed there for a while though.

And just kept swimming. 

“If you get sick, I’m gonna laugh,” 

Naruto looked over and saw Suigetsu looking down at him from outside with his arms folded against his chest. 

“Where have you been?” Naruto asked, disregarding his comment, “You were really late and I haven’t seen you at dinner either,” 

“Why would you care?” 

“Well,” Naruto swam towards the edge of the pool, “in order to work with my bandmates, they would have to show up,” 

“Tch. Whatever. What do you even need me for? I just sing your songs,” 

Naruto lifted himself out of the pool, his clothes hung heavy from his body, “you’re really talented Suigetsu and I would like to work with you. I hope you come around, my door is always open,” Naruto said before making his way inside the house.


	11. Fame and Money

Naruto left a wet trail through the house leading up to his bedroom and he didn't plan on cleaning it up either. He went into his bathroom and slid his t-shirt off his body. In the mirror, he noticed his lips were tinted blue as water droplets still slid down his chest from his hair. Goosebumps littered his body, the shiver that went down his spine reminded him how stupid it was to just jump in the pool fully clothed. He continued to take off the rest of his clothes before hopping in the shower. 

-x-

He had dressed himself and the towel he used to towel dry his hair was thrown in the hamper. For a moment, he had forgotten about the deadline, but it began to stress him yet again. He went over to his desk where he had his recently purchased laptop on and decided to browse through his playlists. He hoped that maybe he could gain some inspiration from other music. He came across this one song he had been listening to and it was different from the type of music he produced. The artist’s voice calmed his anxiety as he listened to it. That’s when he thought about just singing a cover of it. He took his phone out and opened his social media page and opened the camera to his story. He decided to go live instead of a recording. Once he went on live, people quickly started joining his stream and sending him heart and all types of comments. 

“Oh wow, did not expect this many people, believe it!” Naruto said to his audience as he propped the phone to rest against something sturdy but also be angled properly to catch his good side. He started to read the comments and he started to see questions pop up. 

“Sorry, this isn’t a Q&A, I won’t be answering any questions, but I do want to sing for you guys. Don’t mind my hair, I just showered,” He said with a chuckle as he ran his hand through his hair, “Alright, here I go, and if I’m off-key, yell at me? Wait don’t yell, but like let me know- Hi! Karin!” Naruto said when he noticed his bandmate in the comment section, “Yeah I’m aware Kakashi is going to scold me, but a scolding is not gonna make me magically come up with new songs now will it? Anyway, I hope you guys recognize this song if not, it’s by a really good artist and I hope you look her up,” 

[1]Your songs remind me of swimming

Which I forgot when I started to sink… 

Naruto had always been good at acapella since he only ever practiced music without a background track since he didn’t really know how to play any instruments. He learned everything by ear and kept up with the rhythm by tapping his thigh. Whenever He tried learning instruments, he always got frustrated because of how difficult it was to learn. Eventually, he did learn the names of different notes and so on. He was afraid that his song choice would turn more people away because of how different the genre is, but peeking at the comments reassured him as they were flooded with hearts. After he was done with that song, he asked people what he should sing next and he actually got more suggestions than he had anticipated. 

“Wow okay okay, how about I sing a snippet of our single? Yeah? Okay,” 

This went on for a bit until finally, he heard a knock on his door.

“Come in! Oh hey Suigetsu, what’s up?” 

“What are you doing?” 

“I’m live streaming, say hello to all these people,” Naruto says as he moves out of his camera’s view. Suigetsu walked closer and his eyes widened at the number,

“Oh wow that’s a lot of people, well sorry to cut this live stream short, bye guys! Love all my Taka fans!” He said before pressing ‘end live’.

“What was that for?!” Naruto exclaimed

Suigetsu let out a defeated sigh and plopped a piece of paper onto the desk. Naruto tilted his head in confusion, causing the singer to get more frustrated.

“I need help writing a song,” He finally said. 

Naruto’s eyes widened at the request, “Yeah, of course, let me hear it,”

“I literally have the chorus, but I don’t know what else to add,” 

“That’s fine, just let me hear it,” 

[2] Maybe I'm better off dead

If I was would it finally be enough

To shut out all those voices in my head?

Maybe I'm better off dead

Naruto was taken back by the choice of words. He has read the lyrics as Suigetsu sang them. It was something he could definitely work with. 

“It sounds depressing I know,”

“Depressing is fine, a lot of people can relate to this, there’s no shame in that. I can definitely work with this,” Naruto said with a smile of excitement. The strike of inspiration sent a shiver down his spine. “And that’s all you have right?”

“Well there are some other snippets in the past few pages, but they kinda suck,” As Suigetsu said this, Naruto began looking through the pages and read through the snippets. 

I could definitely work with this

“Suigetsu, you’re a lifesaver because I haven’t had any ideas for a song and the deadline is tomorrow,” Naruto looked up from the pages to look at Suigetsu and smiled. The singer stepped back a bit, not expecting his heartbeat skipped a bit. 

“Then get to writing stupid, jeez,” He said, looking away from the blonde’s blue eyes. 

Naruto didn’t notice the subtle change in behavior. The insult was expected as he ignored it and turned back to the sheet of paper. Suigetsu looked around the room and found a lounge chair in the corner of the room and pulled it closer to the desk. He realized that this was the first time he had worked with the blonde, just the two of them. Working was never the issue. Hopefully, it won’t become an issue. 

-x-

“Sasuke! Sasuke!” Naruto said excitedly as he practically ran to his bedroom. He was going to barge in, but a locked door kept him from turning the doorknob. 

“Oh, no fair, teme!” Naruto said. He sighed in defeat and knocked on the door. He waited a bit and heard the doorknob click, instead of waiting for Sasuke to open it, he went to open it himself and was faced with a smirking guitarist. 

“Don’t look at me like that, teme,” Naruto said.

“Hn.” Sasuke turned around and headed to sit back on his bed where he had his laptop set up. Naruto closed the door behind him and went up to Sasuke and handed him his notebook, eagerly shaking the book for him to grab it. Sasuke took it. It was quiet as Naruto let him read through it. 

“Oh shit, no wonder why you haven’t bothered me all day, for a second I thought you drowned in the pool or something,” Sasuke said jokingly. Naruto realized that Sasuke didn’t know that he did jump headfirst into the pool fully clothed earlier and nervously laughed, “Not at all,” he said as he cleared his throat. Sasuke raised his eyebrow at him, he did notice that he was wearing different clothes from the last time he saw him,

“Do I need to know?” he asked. 

“Not really, but! I wrote this with Suigetsu,” 

“You know I wasn’t going to ask if you drowned or not, you don’t have to try and one-up the story,” 

“I’m not- okay honestly, I don’t even blame you for saying that because I’m still shocked that he asked me to help him,” 

“And I didn’t need to put on any headphones to drown out any yelling, I’m impressed, you’re finally maturing, dobe,”

Naruto pouted as he folded his arms against his chest, “asshat,” he muttered. Sasuke looked down at the paper and read over the lyrics. 

“Well?” Naruto asked. 

Sasuke nodded as he placed the notebook on the nightstand, “I’ll start writing chords tomorrow,” He said with a yawn, “It’s getting late,”

“But it’s only 10,” 

“Hn.” Sasuke closed his laptop and got up to place it back on his desk. Naruto took that opportunity and snuck under the sheets. 

“I thought it was only ten,” Sasuke said, turning off his light as he slid into bed next to the blonde. 

“I don’t want to wake you up later when I am tired,” 

Sasuke turned on his side to face the blonde, the only source of light was the moon creeping through his window. He reached his arm out to find Naruto’s waist and pulled him closer. 

“You're excited about this song aren’t you,” Sasuke said, snuggling into Naruto. 

“I just still can’t believe it! He really just asked me, I never would have thought!”

“Believe it or not, he writes songs too, he just lost all his inspiration. Not really sure why I think he talked about it with Karin though,”

“You haven’t tried helping him?” Naruto asked

“How could I? He would hit on me so I just kept my distance,” 

“Fair enough. Do you think he has a feeling about us?” 

“Doubt it. I once dated somebody for a good month and he didn’t even figure that out until it was all over social media and by then I had already cut ties with her,” 

“Ooo her? You like girls too?” 

Sasuke shrugged as he pressed his body against Naruto’s, snuggling his face in his shoulder, “I found her cute, thought why not, then I just found her annoying,” He said as he slid his hand innocently up Naruto’s shirt to warm up his hand using the body heat that radiates from his stomach. This sent a shiver down Naruto’s spine. 

“You find me annoying sometimes,” 

“Hn,”

“Are you gonna break my heart, teme?” 

“Not anytime soon,” 

They were in comfortable silence. Naruto shifted, he pulled his arm out from between them, causing Sasuke to lift his head only to lay it back down on Naruto’s chest as Naruto wrapped his arm around him. 

“What about you?” Sasuke suddenly asked.

“What about me?” 

“Your sexuality,” 

“Oh, bi remember? I think I mentioned it before,” 

Sasuke shrugged slightly but didn't respond as he felt himself being lulled to sleep as he felt circles being traced on his arm. Feeling secure with somebody was a foreign feeling for the guitarist. It’s not that he had trust issues, he felt that it was natural to never give your all to just anybody in case he was ever taken advantage of. As a celebrity, that’s one of the first things they tell you, never trust anybody or your career could be over before you could blink, but this was different. He didn’t know if he should be afraid of how vulnerable he was becoming either, but it was too comforting to pull away, so why should he? Another night sleeping in the blonde’s arms, this feeling made him happy. 

-x- 

Suigetsu, age 19, lead vocalist of the band Taka. He was the first band member to be signed by Sound Studios, a label run by Orochimaru, a man he hated, but also couldn’t live without. There was nothing between them, but at the same time, there was so much. 

After all, he was Orochimaru’s favorite. Being the favorite to the biggest name in the industry would bring so much opportunity and fame, but there's always a cost.

It all started with Suigetsu. A ripe young adult was desperate for a taste of fame and money. He

couldn’t even sing as well at the time as his untrained voice showed itself to every audition that involved singing. He tried his best though, and once he heard that the man who was known for making people famous was attending a club in the next town over, he jumped at the

opportunity.

The night would playback in his head from time to time.

The loud music, thick smoke, bright lights, and the heavy smell of alcohol and body odor. His clothing fit his body tight and snug, maybe too tight.

_ VIP...where the hell could that be… _

Once he found a whole bunch of big bodyguards, he figured he had found it, it was getting through that was the issue. He noticed a server with a platter of drinks-making her way to the area and that’s when the idea struck him. He quickly went in front of the server and took the platter from her hands. 

“Hey!” 

“Sorry sweetie, I got this,” Suigetsu said as he walked away before she could say anything else and the crowd of dancers quickly got in between them the farther away he went. He was met with a lot of bodyguards wearing dark shades. They saw that Suigetsu had a tray of drinks and they let him through the secured area. The only issue is that he didn’t know who to give these drinks too. 

“Drinks! Perfect, come here boy~” 

Suigetsu turned around and his eyes were met with snake-like eyes and long black hair. 

_ Orochimaru. _

A smirk landed on Suigetsu’s lips. He walked over to the man, “and which one is yours handsome,” 

“I think I’m looking at it,” Orochimaru said, pulling his hand out and began caressing his cheek, “Kabuto, take this tray away from us,” he said, not taking his eyes off the silver-haired boy. Suigetsu’s eyes were locked on him even as he felt the tray being taken from him. 

Looking back, he wished he could go back in time and tell his past self to run. 

Suigetsu squeezed his eyes shut for a second as if it would erase the memory. It was this time of day he hated the most. Laying in bed right before falling asleep, if he was able to fall asleep. Instead, his memories kept him awake as always. When he finally fell asleep, he woke up being late to yet another band meeting. He wore makeup to make himself more awake.

The meeting was held in the dining room. When Suigetsu was met with the band members sitting at the table, Kakashi sighed and just told him to sit somewhere. Suigetsu’s gaze met Naruto’s who smiled at him. Suigetsu felt butterflies in his stomach which startled him so he quickly looked away. He felt his face warm-up, but it was hidden well behind his expensive full coverage foundation. He sat next to Karin which was also the farthest away from the blonde. 

“Nice of you to join us Suigetsu, I would be more annoyed about your tardiness, but Naruto informed me that you two got a song done so I’ll let it slide,” 

“That’s awesome! Can we hear it now pleasseee?” Karin asked eagerly. 

“Yeah, I still haven’t written any music to it yet,” Naruto said, 

“We could start writing it now, we have all day right?” Juugo said, looking over at Kakashi. 

“We just have a photoshoot scheduled for tonight for The Note magazine, they also want to interview you guys, I already have the list of questions they plan on asking you so I’m here to tell you them and how to answer them,” 

“Can’t we just answer honestly?” Naruto asked. 

“Yeah if you want to ruin your image for accidentally saying yes to something you don’t mean to say yes too,” Kakashi stated, “Alright so the first question is for you Naruto, how are you fitting in with the band?”

“Uhhh, good,” Naruto said with a nod. Kakashi let out a sigh, 

“and this is why we go over these. Okay, a better answer, and write this down Naruto, say: I’ve been fitting in pretty well, I love working with the band and hope to keep working with them. I’m most excited about this new album, we’re working really hard on it, I know everyone is going to love it,” 

“Oh wow, that’s good,” Naruto said as he wrote it down, knowing he wouldn’t have come up with something like that on the spot. The rest of the meeting continued like this. Of course, there was a question that was asked about Naruto and Sasuke. They kept the answer vague that would leave a lot of people wondering. These questions always made Suigetsu’s skin crawl. He was more annoyed that they never tried playing this trope with him and Sasuke. He looked over to look at his crush only to see that he was too busy looking at Naruto. They were chatting amongst each other and he couldn’t really make out what they were saying, but Naruto must have said something funny because he noticed Sasuke covering his mouth as he was trying to hold in a laugh. 

“Naruto, Sasuke, please pay attention,” Kakashi said.

Suigetsu felt his eyebrow twitch. He had the gnawing feeling that something was going on between them, but the thought made him mad so he did what he did last time Sasuke was involved with someone, suppress and deny. Once the meeting was over, the band agreed to meet in the blue room where they would work on the song. Naruto couldn’t sit still so he would stay standing or move to a different spot every now then while Karin had her bass guitar hooked up as she sat on the floor with her back against the couch. Sasuke also had his guitar he was currently tuning as he sat on the other side of the couch. Suigetsu sat right behind Karin’s head with his legs in a pretzel shape as an excuse to sit next to Sasuke. Juugo had his digital portable drum set up on the coffee table since it was easier than his actual set. 

“Do you wanna start Suigetsu?” Naruto asked as he handed over the notebook that was opened to the song already. 

“Sure,” Suigetsu grabbed the book. He cleared his throat and started singing as he tapped his thigh to stay at the pace he wanted. Juugo nodded as he listened closely, already coming up with a beat for the song as he started hitting his portable drums. Soon enough Karin followed suit then Sasuke. It was moments like these Naruto loved to cherish. All the instruments and talent mending together. It made him forget about the stress of coming up with the material and reminded him of how great it feels when the material was finally there. 

They worked on the song until they had to get ready for the photoshoot. Naruto didn’t worry about his outfit since he was told that they were going to have him change anyway. He was excited to experience this new thing that was a part of the job. He felt his heart race a bit. He didn’t know if he was nervous or excited. He sat in the front seat next to Kakashi as always. The ride there was mostly silent as he played as DJ and played songs everyone could vibe too. Once they got there, they changed into whatever the stylists put them in. They put Naruto in leather pants, but they weren’t as uncomfortable as the last time he had to be in such dreaded clothing. They put him in a loose graphic t-shirt that was purposely torn in some areas. He actually ended up liking the outfit. The shirt was long enough that it would cover his butt and the way the shirt was tucked in the front made him look stylish. 

“Do you think if I ask, they would let me keep this outfit?” Naruto asked Sasuke who looked just as cool in his ripped jeans, boots, grey cotton shirt with a leather jacket on top of that. 

“Maybe, you do look good in those pants,” Sasuke said with a smirk

“Then maybe I will ask,” Naruto said, smirking back. 

The interview was fine. Naruto was already used to these, all he had to do was recite his written down answers while sounding as genuine as he could. This interview was a small one and they were being recorded and they were told it was going to be uploaded to JTube. Then they had to do the photoshoot, but first, they took a food break. 

“How are you feeling Naruto?” Karin asked before taking a bite of her baby carrots. There was a buffet set up not too far from where they were going to shoot and now they were just sitting in the lounge area. 

“Fine actually. This is so cool, I’ve never done something like this and I think I can get used to it,” 

Karin looked to see that the other members were either not paying attention or still getting food before leaning in and suddenly asked, “how are you and Sasuke?” The question nearly made Naruto choke on his water. 

“You have to ask this now? You had all day!” 

“Not with Suigetsu following Sasuke around like a puppy,” Karin said. 

“You have a point,” 

“Does that bother you?”

Naruto shrugged, “I don’t really care. If anything, I just want Suigetsu to see a therapist if I’m going, to be honest, this crush thing cannot be healthy the way he acts on it,” 

Karin couldn’t help but laugh at the response, “You’re funny, and that’s very true, I keep trying to tell him to get over it, but he just doesn’t listen,”

“Hey Karin, I actually have a question, is there a reason why Suigetsu just stopped writing music?” Naruto asked, lowering his voice. Karin bit her lip slightly. He looked over at Suigetsu who was trying to talk to Sasuke as they were getting food still before looking back at Naruto,

“There is… I’m not even sure the whole extent of it. I’ve tried talking to him before but he just won’t tell me anything, but it was about a month before you came along. He wasn’t always this stuck up either,”

“What happened?”

Karin shrugged, “All I remember is that he came home after a one-on-one meeting with Orochimaru one day mad as hell and later that day I found him crying by the pool. I don’t know what happened in that meeting and I don’t think he’s ever told anybody either,” 

Naruto raised his eyebrow, he looked over at Suigetsu who was finally walking over to the lounge area with Sasuke. Juugo had finally come over too since he had been in the bathroom. The conversation had ended there. Naruto didn’t expect to have more questions either. 

The photoshoot was fun. They did all sorts of poses. At first, they kept needing to adjust Naruto since he wasn’t used to getting his photo taken like this but eventually he got the hang of it. Not only that, after the conversation with Karin, but he also had a lot more on his mind now. If anything, the worst-case scenarios kept flooding his thoughts.

-x- 

“What’s on your mind?” Sasuke asked. They were finally home after a long day, they had eaten dinner and Naruto volunteered to do the dishes. Everyone else had gone back to their rooms so it was just him and Sasuke who was leaning against the counter next to him. 

“I asked Karin about Suigetsu…”

“Oh? And what’d she say?” 

“Not much, but also a lot? Do you know the type of relationship Suigetsu has with Orochimaru?” Naruto asked. 

Sasuke tilted his head, not expecting that question, “um, no I never really paid attention...why?”

“What if the label, and by that, I mean Orochimaru, is taking advantage of him?”

“He’s taking advantage of all of us,” 

“No, I mean yes, but like, differently… I don’t know,” 

“I get what you mean. Now that I think about it, every time we had to meet with him, Suigetsu always ended up staying behind,” 

“See! You get what I’m saying right?”

“I do, but even if that was the case, what are you going to do about it?” 

Naruto paused his dishwashing, this only added more questions where he was becoming more frustrated, “I don’t want to do nothing…” 

“Then don’t worry about it now, let’s get this album done, plus that'll get you closer to Suigetsu, maybe he’ll start trusting you,” Sasuke said. 

“You’re right…” Naruto put the last dish on the drying rack and proceeded to dry his hands with a dishcloth. Having Sasuke on his side made things easier. Later that night, he was able to get his mind off of everything. He already grew to love intimacy with Sasuke. When it was just the two of them it was like the rest of the world didn’t exist. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Don't ask me what the upload schedule of this fic is because even I don't even know smh. I hope you enjoy this chapter! please leave any comments of any kind, I appreciate it so much! 
> 
> Just a reminder that there is a playlist full of the songs mentioned in this fic if you want to listen to it, I tend to add new songs while I'm writing so you can get a sneak peek of the next song that's going to be mentioned next :) 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5iGIJw5drjyV4zQlR0RSz0?si=3ldCiOf4QaqL54BQGisqUA
> 
> Disclaimers: I do not own any lyrics used in this chapter. 
> 
> [1] Lyrics are from the song Swimming by Florence + The Machine.  
[2] Lyrics are from the song Better off Dead by Sleeping with Sirens.


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